Autonomy
by soignees
Summary: Vetra has been kidnapped by one of the Pathfinder's enemies; if anyone thought she was going to sit on her ass and wait for rescue, they have another thing coming. Until then, it's up to Ryder to navigate the fragile politics of Heleus, before her time runs out.
1. DATE UNKNOWN, INSUFFICIENTDATA 2820-

_DATE UNKNOWN, INSUFFICIENT_DATA?/2820-2183_

It was too cold on Menae. Vetra had troubles with the temperature drop, even in her stolen Blackwatch armour, and tried not to fidget warmth back into her carapace. "Report," a voice said through the comm; she stood up straight, hands on her rifle.

"At the third door," she replied. "We're ahead of ourselves."

The view was beautiful, even from the little she allowed herself to look at. Palaven glittered on the horizon, and Vetra glanced once to see if she could see Cipritine from here, even if she knew there was no chance to- her home faced the other side of the moon, bathed in the sun.

Home, hah. That's rich. Home was several light years away with Sid- they left the planet years ago with all they could carry. With a mental shake, she adjusted the hold on her rifle and focused on the job. She was on guard point, waiting for Avelius to hack the third door. No time for memories, not now.

"Keep at it. Good luck, Night Nurse." Vetra rolled her eyes at her code name again. She was confused as to why she had to be the damn nurse. Since when did her skills go beyond slapping on medi-gel? If the mission didn't go to shit -which it might- she would ask later, hopefully over a drink.

With a wincing inhale at the cold again, Vetra scanned their location, heart in mouth as she saw a lone figure head their way. He was a sanitation worker, going by the uniform. This was not part of the plan; no one would be here for another ten minutes, according to the guard schedule. "Shit," she caught herself mumbling, and fumbled her visor into zoom mode.

They were still unobserved. Vetra gestured for Avelius to get to cover with a swift hand, and both of them watched as the worker pulled out a chocolate bar, huddled in guilt at his bounty. If he looked up, they would be spotted- and soon.

Vetra wasn't much of a sniper, but for now she had to be. The original plan was minimal violence; two shots from her silenced rifle put an end to it. Her target fell down with a thump, and Avelius helped her move the body into the shadows before taking point back at the door.

The comm hissed static in her ear again. "Your suit triggered a readout, any trouble? Don't speak, I can see you from here." Vetra made the gesture for one enemy, followed swiftly with a dealt with. "You're lucky it wasn't a guard. Keep quiet and on target, and hope they don't have friends. ETA in six until pick up," came the reply.

"Nothing wrong with a good ol' double tap," said a voice to her left. "Gets it done, eh?"

Vetra jerked in annoyance. No one should be that loud, not here- this was a stealth job, after all. "Keep it down, asshole," she hissed, pulling the body to cover. Two pairs of eyes blinked at her, and her old Batarian mentor smiled around a cigarette.

"Can put a skinny bitch like you in their place," she replied in a puff of smoke. "Don't try me."

"Umak?" Vetra was confused, but there was a job to do. She checked the progress of the door hack- 56%, and counting. "Why are you-"

"You still pull to your left when you shoot," Umak said, wincing in distaste. "Thought I taught you better. Remember to breathe out when you pull the trigger, always helps. And stop it with the ego shots. They ain't worth your time."

Vetra gripped her gun again, snapping her open mouth shut. "What are you doing here?" Last she saw Umak was in some rundown station bar in the Skyllian Verge- she had even helped her back to the awful motel she lived in, still reeking of the stale rum her mentor was fond of. "Keep your head down, the door's almost-"

"Where do you think you are?"

She looked down, confused at the question. The Blackwatch uniform she wore for the Menae job was replaced by the usual colours of her undersuit. Where was her armour? It was as cold as Voeld here, why-

Voeld? Vetra suppressed the thought in a snap so sharp her temples throbbed. No one was allowed to know about that, she knew. That part of her had to be protected. Where was she?

The lights of Palaven were swallowed in darkness, and Menae fractured into dust. Vetra opened her eyes to a dark cell, surrounded by metal walls. The cold floor seeped into her plates, and she shivered. It was a place meant to break her; there were no windows and lights. Vetra had no idea what she had done to get there in the first place.

While the moon base and Avelius had disappeared, Umak had not, a comfort in her confinement. "We're shit out of luck," Umak whispered near her. "Could do with a drink."

She could hear disjointed murmurs of a conversation muffled through the wall, and Vetra sat up in an instant. "We're not alone. Hey assholes!" Vetra pulled herself up slowly, legs unsteady. "I know you can hear me."

Umak blinked four eyes at her in the gloom, puzzled at the reaction. "There's nothing there."

Was it some sort of comm she had heard? Vetra shook her head, irritated by the low buzz still. "We need to get out," she said, shaking her head. "This isn't right."

"It never is." The pair of them paced their tiny cell, looking for an exit along the walls. Vetra felt the breeze of a gap just below her chin, and her talons slipped around the edge of it. She hit the spot as hard as she could with a fist, growling in frustration.

"Nothing." Vetra grit her teeth as pain throbbed her hand. "Come on, someone must've heard us."

"On a scale of one to ten, how fucked do you think we are?" Umak scratched at an ear, a nervous gesture Vetra knew well. "Could really use that drink."

"You always did." The past tense gave her pause, and a memory rose through the haze. Why was Umak even here? "It'll be the death of you some-" Vetra stopped herself, and the thought ran away with her. Her eyes had adjusted to the dark now, enough to see a bucket placed in the corner.

"How thoughtful of them," Umak said, noticing it too. "We get to share."

"This isn't anything official. Which means we've pissed off some shitty gang, which makes no sense as I cleared access with the Eclipse before coming. I thought I had Iliak in my pocket- this was meant to be an easy job."

Words bounced back at her. " _Iliak? Eclipse? Try again_." An image bubbled up in her thoughts, of sunlight and alien shades of people watching her as she checked over the cargo needed for-

No, that's not right. She was in- she was where Scott- another place, where-

In anger, she hit the gap in the wall again. Umak shrugged, staring at the floor instead. "They always start out easy," she said. "Never trust easy. There's always a catch."

"I have no idea how I failed the pick up," and Vetra felt herself fumble through her words as if they were rehearsed, heavy and cloying in her mouth. "I swear everything was under control- didn't think the buyer would stiff us. Did-"

The background noise came back, hissing through the wall. She could make out voices this time, but the droning murmur was the same as it before.

 _"What's she saying?"_

 _"Garbage, mostly. Decrease her dosage. I want her controlled, not inarticulate. I thought you said this would work?"_

"You didn't check everything," Umak growled, lighting a cigarette with her omni-tool. She had an omni-tool? Useful, they could use that. "You thought you were safe. Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy. I taught you better! Start from the beginning, Vee- what do you remember?"

"I'm at the port, waiting for the authorities to clear our access. The pick up was on-" _Aya._

"Illium," Umak finished for her.

"It always comes down to that shithole. Sets my teeth on edge," Vetra said, pushing up a visor that wasn't there. "I was in the right place and at the right time. Had to get the supplies to-" _the Tempest._

Umak blew out a puff. "Your ship? You still got that heap of junk with Grank?" Umak chuckled at the thought of him. "He still get angry if you put the boxes in the wrong place? He's the only Krogan neat freak in all of Terminus, I swear."

"Don't I know it. 'Hey Nyx, what did I tell you about throwin' 'em like that? Everything has its place in the universe, even-'"

"'-shits like you.'" Umak finished, and the pair of them smiled at the other.

The memory of her Krogan friend merged and vibrated with another, this time of an older veteran wreathed in bones and kind eyes. Shaking her head cleared the double vision, and Vetra sat down. "I don't feel so good," she said, hands over her eyes.

"That's because you're out of your plates on something. Could've shared before we got here." Sarcasm dripped through Umak's speech, annoyed now. "Thanks for dragging me into this, by the way."

Vetra shook her head. "You know I don't do that shit," she said. Her skin itched beneath her carapace, fingers too stiff to scratch at it. "This isn't right, I can feel it. But I don't remember how."

"Who would drug you, then? Think girl."

"Don't call me girl," she said. No one would ever call her that, not again.

Umak leapt up, somehow finding a seat on the wall to perch on. Was that there before? Vetra couldn't remember. "I'll call you as I please, if you're going to act a child. Use your head."

The answer bubbled up through her fuzzy thoughts in an instant. "They want me controlled. Which means they want something, or they think I'm dangerous. Which is it?"

"I don't know, sweetie. This is your hallucination."

"Hallucin-?"

 _Huh_. Vetra shook her head, trying to shake the dizziness away. The walls began to move now, spreading further and further from her point in the room, just like the time a whole bottle of Cipritine brandy in an hour seemed like a good idea. "I can't move-"

Her ears hummed with static. Another loud buzz filled the room and her head throbbed in pain, shooting through her crest and back. When the floor to her cell fell away, Vetra had no choice but the follow, falling into darkness.

She did not wake again that night.


	2. Four Days Ago: Sabeng System

_SABENG SYSTEM ORBIT, FOUR DAYS AGO / 2820_

Complete happiness was still an alien concept to Vetra, even if she would never admit to it anyone.

Hope for a better life led her to Andromeda in the first place, of course. A chance at that promised golden world, a clean start with Sid off the trail. She even had someone watching her back this time, and more besides: she was the Pathfinder's partner, and not just for what she could get him.

Vetra didn't know what to do with herself in peacetime. When she kept still long enough to appreciate what she had, self-loathing would stare back. "You, have all this? Ha."

That the voice sounded a lot like her mom was not lost on her. Work was the key to drowning it out, and there was still plenty to do. The Tempest had returned at last to what it did best, with Meridian far behind them.

The entire crew were relieved to be back on their ship, even with a new member; Sara Ryder had at last joined their team. SAM's capabilities were, in theory, as present in her as they were in Scott. SAM and Sara had come to their own agreement about just what that was, telling no one else. If you told her years ago an AI and a human would be keeping secrets from her on a ship she would work on, Vetra wouldn't believe it- but that was her life, too.

Even though they had no clue where they would be next week, there was a comfort in having a routine on board. The rota had her cleaning up after today's dinner, another 'surprise' hotpot from Drack; the usual round of Skyllian Five with Gil followed, and the usual beating.

Vetra had time to chase her contacts in the research room before bed, working while Liam ran his mouth off at Sara about some vid again. "You got to admit Vega Bull Jnr was good- the whole interspecies thing was well done, I thought."

She tuned the conversation out to concentrate on an email. "How long have you and my brother been seeing each other, anyway?" Sara asked her, leaning against the table Vetra was working on. It was such a sudden statement that Vetra startled; was it something to do with the vid?

"You're for it now, Nyx," said Liam, reading her enough to see the confusion.

"No I'm not." She swivelled her chair to face them before speaking, trying to work it out. "I guess from around when you woke up from your coma," she said, answering the question carefully. "A couple of weeks before, maybe."

"You doing the shotgun talk?" Liam said, smiling wider. "Hang on, Scott needs to be here for this," and made a show of pressing the ship wide comm. "Request for the Pathfinder from the research room. Over," he said into it. "Shotgun skills are in action."

"Shotgun?" Vetra quirked a mandible in question. As she worked out the idiom, Vetra rolled her eyes. Humans could make mountains out of maw shit sometimes, especially when it came to relationships. "Don't stick your nose in, Kosta."

Liam was enjoying himself too much for her taste. "Tag team effort. Your turn Sara."

Scott cut through from engineering to join their group, bored enough to bite at the response. "You yelled?"

"He's just being an ass," Vetra said, jerking her head Liam's way. "As usual."

Scott shrugged, then dipped to kiss her between the stripes of her mandibles; the gesture wasn't lost on anyone in the room, considering the current topic. "What about this time?"

"Thanks for your vote of confidence, Pathfinder," came the reply. "And ask your sister." Liam swung back to his monitor to attempt work, still with an ear to the conversation.

Scott looked at Sara for an answer, an eyebrow raised. "He thinks I'm cleaning a shotgun on the porch- if the ship had one. Do ships have porches?" she said. "Vetra's safe, don't worry."

"I know. We've all seen your aim," Scott replied.

"What I meant to say, _assbutt_ ," and Sara glared at at him, "is that your business is your own. But you keep this up, I got a whole bunch of stories I can share. He used to eat his boogers, you know- just putting that out there."

"No one is surprised," Liam said, not looking up from his datapad. "Still- you must be curious with what your father would make of all …this," and gestured vaguely enough in front of him for them to interpret how they wanted.

Vetra took the bait. "I didn't interact much with your dad, I dealt mainly with Kesh before we left. From what I saw, he seemed solid. Very focused on the mission, wanted things done, which we needed. I think he would've been proud with how everything has turned out, especially with you two."

Sara and Scott looked at each other briefly, reluctant to reply. "That's kind of you," Sara said, picking her words carefully. "Work was his blood, that's for sure."

"Yeah, I figured." Vetra glanced at Scott, concerned she had said the wrong thing. They had talked in great detail about absent fathers and living with them, but no one else had to know. "Do you think he would've been okay with you and me, if he was around?"

Sara laughed once. "Ah man, I wish you met sooner. If only for witnessing that."

"Dad wouldn't have cared." Scott shrugged, desperate to end the conversation.

"Didn't he fight in the First Contact War?" Liam asked, oblivious to the unsaid. "I mean, that's got to be awkward. 'Hey Dad, my girlfriend's Turian. Pass the potatoes.'"

Vetra wondered if the Ryders were ever a _pass the potato_ kind of family to begin with. "Do you really think our dad had a problem with Turians?" said Sara. "Things like this only turn bad if you make it weird," and she smiled a shade too sweet at him. "Don't be weird."

"This crew I ran around with a couple of times had a system," Vetra said. "Called it the Shanxi Jar. Any time someone mentioned 'the incident,' they were fined five credits. Surprisingly effective." She made a point to stare down Liam.

"Yeah, yeah," he replied, ignoring it. "Anyway. We're all a bit weird, you know? Part of the ship's slogan, even. I'll fabricate a bumper sticker for the Nomad later- maybe a fridge magnet for the drive core. Gil would love it."

"Hey, I'm more normal than Scottie," said Sara. Her brother chuffed in disagreement.

"You have something weird," Liam said, narrowing his eyes at her. "Everyone does. I just have to find it." Scott wondered if his friend was flirting and raised a brow at Vetra; she shrugged back- no way in hell was she touching that particular kaerkyn's nest.

His sister looked at her toes, face a shade too red. "Anyway," she said. "Even if there was any hypothetical potato passing, all Dad would do is clear his throat, ask about Vetra's military service and her work. Then he would've gone to his study and left us all alone."

"Oh boy," Vetra replied, fiddling with her own datapad. "That sounds like a fun conversation for everyone."

Scott draped a hand over her shoulders. "We're not in the Milky Way anymore. You don't have to prove yourself to anyone, least of all to hypothetical fathers."

"Just actual big sisters," Sara said, eyes gleaming in the darkened room. "And I would be the easiest Ryder to win over. It would be our mom Vetra would be up against- she's sneaky. You would be killed with kindness, you know. One shot, one kill."

"That's where I get my aim from," Scott said, nodding solemnly. Ryder and his ego shots were beyond a joke now. "That and these cheekbones, obviously."

"Couldn't escape the Ryder nose, though," and Sara flicked the offending body part. "Neither of us could."

"I like the nose. Gives you character," Vetra said, standing up to reach for him so she could rub her smaller one against his.

Sara looked away, taking the gesture as a sign to go. "Well then. Time to make like Dad and awkwardly leave for my study. My bed in crew quarters is calling me, night all."

"I'll come with, need to poke the galley." Liam followed her with a wave towards them both. "See? I told you- shotgun talk," they both heard him say through the doors. "Was going to happen eventually."

She felt Scott stare at her. So she kissed him, alone as they were in the room. It was not quite a proper human kiss -it never would be- but the gesture remained. "Give me six," she told him. "Need to finish this. Meet you soon?"

Vetra felt the whisper of his teeth at her neck and smiled. "You better," he said. "Or they'll be trouble. I've got two hours free, then I'm on the night shift with Jaal."

"Always trouble with you." She watched him walk away over her the glow of her omni-tool before she went back to her message.

Eventually she found the Pathfinder's cabin, distracted by an errant source of hypercoils for Gil. The place was theirs now, since Sara had joined them. She saw moving into Scott's quarters as a solution to space issues, but the rest of the crew made more of a deal about the change than she did.

Scott smiled at her from the end of the bed, datapad in hand. Vetra sat next to him and began to snap off her boots, wondering what sort of mood he was in. On their first night of her moving in, someone (and she suspected Jaal, but no one would admit anything, not even SAM) sprinkled plastic petals on the covers, and Vetra was still finding the damn things everywhere.

As she wiggled her toes into the floor, she saw a solitary petal had buried itself in the carpet and placed it with care on the table next to them. "I have a pickup on Kadara for Gil," she said, her mind drifting back to work. "Deadline's a week. I'm thinking, maybe we could-"

He was in no mood for shop talk. Scott pushed her flat on her back, straddling her thighs with a smile. Vetra leaned back on her elbows to look up at him. "That kind of evening, huh?"

"Hmm," was all he said, intent on unclasping her armour. "Unless…" She answered by rolling them over until she was on top. Her breastplate was removed and fell to the floor in a satisfying thunk, the rest of her clothing following suit.

Scott put his hands behind his head and grinned. "Oh no, you got me- whatever shall I do?"

He was duly pinched in the ribs. "Lazy asshole. Strip." His shirt was pulled off by them both, and she ran her hands along the lines of his chest, past the dip of his belly button. Did she have a Human fetish? She liked their voices before, loud and bright. This though, this did it for her.

"Not so lazy," and Scott flipped her over again. There was only so much bed left and she was two metres of Turian. Vetra almost fell off, and was dragged back onto the mattress to their laughter.

Her head still dangled over the edge, and she looked up to see him tracing a line of kisses over her stomach. Scott looked up briefly to smirk, then moved down so his head was between her legs. She ran her talons carefully through his curly hair and smiled.

She felt her plates shift open, sighing at his soft tongue. A realisation dawned on her and her head snapped back up; Vetra tugged his hair to get him to look at her. "You taken your pill?"

He grinned and held up an empty blister of medicine meant to neutralise their chirality issues. "Winging it."

Either he carried them around full time now, or he had sat on the bed and planned for this- both worked in her favour, frankly. "When do you not?" Her laugh was silenced as he put his clever tongue to use again.

Vetra ran her own hands along her stomach, drawing circles into her skin. Just as she began to feel the rolling of something build, he moved away. "We're going to have a problem if you stop," she said.

Scott wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Sounds fun," he said, moving between her legs. Vetra took the hint and wrapped them around his waist, moaning as his he replaced his tongue with his fingers. "I like those problems."

"Ryder." Vetra said his name like a warning. She arched around his hand as he curved it just so, despite herself. "Scott-"

"You're wet," he said, slow now with his strokes. "And I'm hard. Wonder what happens next?"

"You talk so much shit." Vetra pulled him closer, kissing his mouth hard enough to shut him up.

"You had no problems with my mouth a moment ago," he still replied, making a point to wiggle his fingers.

Vetra mumbled something, his translator glitching at the sound. "What was that?" Scott leant forward to kiss under her mandibles, smiling at her reaction.

"I said fuck me," she replied, sitting up to face him. Her sharp green eyes found his in defiance, moving in to kiss him again.

Cora asked her once, what this was like. The pair of them had several shots of their mutual poison between them at the time, and it was just enough for Vetra to answer her seriously. The question was worded in the vaguest of terms of course, it always was: "what's it like, being with someone outside your species?"

Vetra's record for dating -outside or otherwise- was never much to begin with, but even when someone as straight as Cora was asking, the subtext was always the same. Assholes got told to move on, but for friends Vetra would say: "similar, but different."

Of course there would be differences. "You like your waist touched?" Scott had said the first time, baffled by her moans. And while she discovered he was soft just about everywhere, Vetra soon found out that he was hard enough to prove that evolutionary convergence was a wonderful thing.

So when he finally sunk into her, it was relief. And when she said, "you feel so good," she meant it. Besides, sometimes the only way she could get Scott Ryder to shut up was when he was inside her, so very pleased that she could reduce him into an incoherent mess somehow.

Vetra gave as good as she got when he began to move in earnest, talons gripping his hair and back. He paused his thrusts and she groaned in frustration, lifting her hips again so he would get the hint. "Move," she said, squeezing him just so.

He didn't need telling twice. The rhythm they found worked for her, leaning back slightly so he hit her in the right place. She arched her back and his lips found her neck again, sucking at pulse point there.

If he kept this up she was going to come soon. Vetra tried to delay it, but as he snapped his hips back and forth harder she gave into her own kind of incoherence, greedy for the release. Vetra clenched around him and he shuddered through a series of clumsier thrusts, relieved at the pleasure centred around his own release.

He collapsed on top of her in a smile. Vetra stroked his back idly, content to hold him in the cradle of her thighs while his breathing calmed. "Fuck," Scott managed to say, finally lifting his weight off of her carapace.

"We just did." She patted his shoulder to move, mouth against his sweaty temple. "Need to clean up," she murmured, lifting her hips to make her point. Scott reached into the bedside table to pull out the wipes they used, and the pair of them disentangled themselves carefully.

The quiet moments in their cabin were just as lovely as the sex, if she was honest. Vetra moved under the covers to curl around him, content in the silence. "Never trust what anyone says to you after you fucked 'em good," Umak used to say, during the down time between jobs. Umak taught her how to shoot -and more besides- and Vetra smiled at the memory of the old girl in fondness.

Scott watched her entertain herself with a tiny patch of hair on his chest, twirling what little there was there with a talon as she was lost in her thoughts. "That tickles," he said, stilling her hand. "Have to protect it all, you know."

"That's a thing?" Vetra lifted her head just enough to see him.

He smiled. "Hmm. It's where I keep my masculinity. Shave it off and I die."

"That's not a thing," she said, yanking at it.

"Ow!" Scott, shoving her off. "Fuck, Vetra. I swear you're with the wrong guy for a hair fetish."

"Hah, you wish. Don't grow a beard. They freak me out."

He huffed. "Can't anyway, mine is pathetic. Liam's isn't- showed me pictures from his HUSTL days," and Scott gestured his hands around his chin. "Kind of jealous."

"That's your way of passing me off? _Liam_ , really?"

Scott snorted. He knew there would be no way in hell Vetra would consider it, but somehow he baited her anyway. "I'm just saying, it's majestic. I just grow scruff."

Vetra tapped his cheek, trailing a line across the freckles there. "Nope, no beard," she said. "I'm already finding bits of you in places I shouldn't." Like the hairs on her clothing. And random strands stuck in her visor, and looped around her mandibles.

"But how else will the universe get to see my awful moustache? Come on now."

"Nice try," she said, leaning on one hand to look down at him. "But no."

"Fine, you asked for this," and sat up a shade too fast for her liking. Scott made a point by rubbing his scratchy stubble into her neck, even though her skin was thicker than his. She could still feel enough to give him what he wanted to hear, however; Vetra Nyx -badass smuggler and former mercenary for hire- could giggle.

"Yeah, yeah," she said, pushing him off. "You're kind of cute. I'll give you that."

"About right for us. 'You're cute, I guess. You'll do.'"

"Hmm," she said, pretending to think about it. "I mean, if I have to. Not much else going on."

"I see how it is." They pulled apart enough for him to reach for his discarded datapad. "Just here for your amusement, am I? Best make sure you pay up the credits before I leave."

Vetra shifted to her back, smiling at the ceiling. "Professionals demand payment upfront before they get the goods. That's how it goes for all kinds of transactions, believe me."

Scott paused in his email, then shrugged. "I should've taken Reyes up on his offer, then. I wonder if he'd still let me sit on that fancy throne of his? He's not using it, anyway."

"Hey now, I'm not done with you yet," she said. "All I can only offer you is my aim, a crate of Blast-ohs, half a heating unit, Havarl soil samples, and some leaking transponders," she said, naming off all she had in storage on the Tempest. "My kingdom is yours."

"Sold. You got better legs than Reyes anyway," he said, sliding his free hand down the unplated skin on her thigh. "He made me question myself, though. Jesus."

"You have better taste than that," she said, smiling wider. "It's a new galaxy, get an Angaran. Why not Jaal? I'll even hold your rofjinn for you."

Scott decided to play along, looking back to humour her as he tapped away on his datapad. "Ah, you've caught me. I can never resist a well perfumed neckflap- my secret is out. Besides, you're going to leave me for the first Asari dancer that flutters their eyes at you. Jaal will be comforting me."

"Poor Scott Ryder, dumped for an imaginary dancer," she said, patting his head as he ran a finger down his cheek. "I'll move out tomorrow- give you and Jaal some room."

"You're woman enough for me, Vetra." His hand found the dip of her waist, and she inhaled sharply. "Well, Turian. Eh, you know what I mean."

"If you say so," she said, content to be held in the silence. "Your birthday, when is it?" She asked, after awhile. Vetra was very aware of her fondness for him warming her from the inside, happy to indulge in it at least awhile. Stoking the gizzard, her father would call it. Odd little idiom, but at least she didn't abuse them in conversations with aliens.

Scott frowned at the question, tossing the datapad back on his nightstand. "Counted our birthdays on Citadel time, mostly. Hard to keep track of it here. SAM would probably know. SAM?"

 _-You are twenty three Standard years, Pathfinder. You will be twenty four in fourteen days and sixteen hours._

Vetra squirmed at the sound of the AI's voice. "I always forget you're here," she said. Did you get a good show at least?"

 _-I am mostly absent during your intimate moments with the Pathfinder, Ms. Nyx. Per Scott's request._

She pinched her nose plates and breathed out. "Anyway. What do you want to do for your birthday?" Vetra asked Scott. "I know they're a thing for you Humans. Turians think you should go thank your mom for pushing you out instead."

Scott shrugged. She knew he would try and ask for something easy, which she found vaguely insulting. "I have no idea," he said.

"How about vids? Another stupid Blasto shirt? A gun mod?"

He shrugged again, rubbing the back of his head hard enough to make his curls bounce. "I don't know."

"Any food stuff you want?" He gave her a look and she held her hands up in defence. "No more cooking, I promise. Was thinking more in the line of snacks. Chocolate is practically a currency now, you know."

He was looking at the door, mind elsewhere. Vetra gently poked him. "Jellybeans, if you can," he said, reaching for her hand. "Something for Sara. I'm sure Lexi will have a fit since she's on a muscle building diet, but whatever. My sister can eat pure sugar if she wants."

"See what I can do." She reached for the the strap that made her omni-tool and started to go through her contacts. A source in Kadara might help; maybe she could rope in on of the recently thawed chefs on Nexus to try and recreate whatever the hell jellybeans were in the first place.

Scott rolled over to put on his underwear. "I'm thinking we should head to Aya soon. Need to set up a meeting for Sara's Angaran Pathfinder project, we can head to Kadara after for your pickup."

"Hmm," she said. Something about Aya set Vetra's teeth on edge, but she could understand why he wanted to go. "You never gave me an idea of what to get you, unless you want a surprise?"

He paused, and she rolled her eyes at his reluctance to answer. "Just get Sara her candy," he said. "Booze for me, no party otherwise. Me passing out under a table is expected, anyway."

She narrowed her eyes at that. "We having one, then? A party, I mean."

Scott chewed a nail. "Keep it small. Dinner with the crew, maybe."

"I know she's your sister," she said, thinking about ways to make Sara more welcome. "But she's definitely the calmer one."

"She's been through some shit," he said, looking at the door. "She used to talk so much her brain wouldn't catch up. She's been quieter since Meridian. Not that you would notice, but I do."

"Doc says she'll be better soon, though."

"Diet and exercise and good thoughts, if you believe that. Not fit for duty, though. Yet. She's not bad with the biotics; maybe Cora can help her with training. I just shoot things." He screwed his face up, then nodded. "Yeah, we'll go to Aya. It'll be good for her. All that cultural stuff, cheer her up. She even liked the weird Prothean crap she helped find."

Vetra yawned and wedged her a pillow into her cowl. "All right. Mind if I sleep? I got to get up early tomorrow. My shift is after yours." Scott pulled the covers around her and she smiled.

"SAM, dim the lights for sleep mode. Will change in the bathroom, need a shower anyway. See you in the morning," he said, a gentle kiss on her nose. He was the last thing she heard before sleep found her.


	3. Present Day I

_UNKNOWN LOCATION, PRESENT DAY / 2820_

A loud clank of metal woke her up.

She couldn't open her eyes just yet, but Vetra could hear. The murmurs from before came back, but this time she could at least understand them. "Who she meant to be, then?" She heard that in Sol-English. No translator meant no visor, no omni-tool and no sub-dermal implants. They even yanked that from out of her skin, and her stomach coiled in anger at the thought.

Vetra was pissed enough to open her eyes now, to see if they were close. She was still surrounded by walls, but there was a glass section wide enough to see through. She swallowed once to coat her dry throat, tasting old blood; one swipe of her tongue followed and Vetra felt a hole where a canine should be. They removed a tooth, too? _Assholes._

Her vision was too blurry to make out anything other than silhouettes, a glimmer of lighting from their suits. "I don't think we're paid to know," replied a gravelly voice, one she recognised as a dialect of Cipritine, the accent of her father.

The human -and it had to be human, for the language alone- said something she couldn't catch, laughing at her own joke.

"Get out," she heard. Another Turian, a voice used to giving orders. "And give me your smokes. I know you have them."

She was still freezing, huddled under a dirty blanket in a strange undersuit. The cold sensation in her arm made sense now; a drip of something clear was feeding into it. Two ration bars were placed by her head as she turned it, an indirect demand for her to eat them.

What did she remember last? Aya, that's right. Helping the colonists in the port, buying some spare battery cells for the Tempest. She was bending over and checking supplies when a needle was shoved into her neck. Vetra broke someone's nose going down. She made sure of that.

Strange lights still flickered behind her eyelids, and she pressed her palms to them. Not trusting her mind completely, she sat up. "Any chance you're gonna let me out soon? Got places to be." Vetra squinted through the bars, and Mavenus looked back at her, standing behind his desk. The Asari holding a moon glowed blue and yellow behind his crest, and she focused on it out of habit.

Vetra snapped her face back into something more neutral and waited for the lecture that always came whenever she was in his-

-office? No, this isn't right. Vetra scrubbed her face at the deception, annoyed at the drugs. This wasn't Mavenus, and she wasn't in Xerceo anymore- that was six hundred years ago in another galaxy.

Her captor had different colony markings and more muscle mass. She knew him then, he was- ah, shit. "Vetra," her captor said in greeting. The glow of the Asari lamp dissipated, replaced by the bland strip light above him in an eye blink.

"Oh," she said. "Great." The dregs of whatever drug in her system lingered, but not enough to blur the reality this time. Her head hurt too much for it to be fantasy; Vetra would've preferred those office lectures to this. "Kaetus Vexen. Long time no see. You footing the bill for my stay?"

Kaetus pulled a stool over to sit opposite her cell. "Took a lot of work to get you here, Nyx."

If she had her visor, Vetra would be pulling up all the information she had him, trying to find the upper hand. Instead she had to make do with her imperfect memory, scrabbling through her mind to dig up whatever dirt she had over him. Everything about Kaetus always circled back to Sloane regardless, even if she was buried in the middle of Kadara's desert with a bullet in her skull.

Though she wanted to call him several shades of asshole, Vetra knew she had to play this one carefully. "You really are loyal," she said, refusing to mention his old Commander's name. She knew he was a hardass and could resort to violence in a switch- Vetra remembered the Outcasts iron grip of Kadara a little too well.

"Yes," was the simple reply. "Let's see if it's the same for you." If Kaetus had escaped, that meant the members associated with his crew probably helped him. She hoped Ryder was fast enough to work this out, and that there was a clue SAM could scrape up somewhere from Aya.

The drip feeding into her annoyed her, and Vetra yanked it out. "What do you want? Secrets? Merchandise? Money?" She had a vague hope her kidnapping was over something as simple as greed, but knew deep down this was revenge. Still, though- most people had a price, and all she had to do was find it. "I'm sure we can make a deal."

Her attempts at parley were ignored. "It's just fluids," he said, watching blue blood drip down her arm as she pulled the tubing out. "Didn't have to do that. That's meant to replace what you lost while you were out of your crest on Oblivion- you've been gone for two days."

Vetra knew anger wouldn't work, not with him. He was used to being called a surly bastard, after all. "Where am I?"

"Nope," Kaetus said, and carefully pulled out a battered cylinder of something from his armour. "We don't play that, either." With gloveless fingers Kaetus began to roll a cigarette, tin balanced on his thigh. "Oblivion's a bitch of a comedown, so I'm told. You should eat something. It helps."

The last thing Vetra would trust was food from him, and she pushed the ration bars to one side. "Why am I here?"

He licked the paper of his rolled cigarette before he answered. "Use your fucking brain. We didn't drug you that much."

She was still alive for a reason. "I'm bait," she said. It was odd how backwards things had become since coming to a new galaxy. Vetra would never forget boiling her own water to drink during the Nexus blackouts; she didn't have to do that even for the dirtiest of jobs back in Terminus, and that was saying something.

Kaetus lit his cigarette with his omni-tool and nodded his reply, enjoying his first drag in silence. Vetra would bet her last credit that he was smoking the new strain of 'medicine' Kadara produced, a vague recollection of a buyer list with his name on it surfacing in her mind. "You know what I want."

 _Ryder._

That egotistical duel, how did so many lives rest on one bullet? Vetra would sell out Reyes in a heartbeat if it kept Scott safe, and it surprised her how easily that thought bubbled up. Ryder over the Charlatan? No problem, not to her.

Vetra had no idea if anyone knew she was missing. "No one is looking for me," she said, hoping Sid would keep out of it. "I might be on the Pathfinder team, but there's a failsafe for things like this. No deals with terrorists. The Nexus made sure of that."

The 'T' word made him snort, amused at the misnomer. "That's a load of shit and you know it." Kaetus paused, his cigarette glowing in the gloom. "You got the Initiative, the Resistance and the Collective looking for you. On record, at least. Reality is a different story."

She didn't react to the news, even though she wanted to. "Why are you telling me this? You want an audience?"

The light flickered above his head before he spoke. "I'm here out of courtesy, to remind you that it could be worse. I could take out whatever revenge I wanted on you, send Ryder your head as a message. Do you think that would make us square, Nyx? I mean, really. There's a symmetry to this, isn't there? As if the universe willed it this way."

Vetra exhaled. She didn't take Kaetus for the philosophical sort, desperate to punch something. Maybe he read poems to Sloane in bed after they fucked, but she didn't have to hear about it. "That's the smoke talking."

"If you say so," and took another drag of his cigarette to spite her.

The headache still pinched her skull, but Vetra ignored it. She hobbled slowly to the window of her prison. "I'm gonna assume you want something- you're still here. Tell you what, let's cut a deal. If you let me go now, you can walk away from whatever hell is coming for you. I'll even see to it that you're not harmed."

He chuckled in a cloud of smoke, amused by the threat. "Cute. You familiar with the six tenets of failure, Nyx? From the philosophy of Gothis. What with your patchy education, I'm going to say no."

That was enough to spark her anger into something external, annoyed both at the pretentious subject change and the condescension. "I know who she is. ' _Neglect to defence while palaces thrive leads to destruction.'_ Familiar enough, asshole?"

Kaetus shrugged. "Everyone remembers that one. No, I'm talking about: ' _When pressured by outsiders, your allies will fail to help_.' Unless there's a common enemy to dig into- and you don't look like Kett."

The blood had stopped dripping now, though her arm stung still. "You think?" Vetra flexed it gently, fingers to the wound. "Who gives a shit about some old Hierarchical garbage anyway? We left it light years ago."

He nodded to accede her point. Most -if not all- Turians taken in with the Initiative's pitch had plenty to say about the status quo. Jien Garson had promised them a new beginning free of the Hierarchy, to shape a society that would be theirs. "Some of it rings true. You can't deny that," he said.

Vetra hissed in annoyance. "You really want to talk to me about philosophy?"

"The point is, Gothis wrote those tenets over three thousand years ago- during or before the Unification War, don't recall what. Don't care, either way; I'm just impressed that they hold up. People are still the same assholes, even in another galaxy. Do you understand, now?"

She got the point he was trying to make and made no show of recognising it. Poker nights with Gil taught her something about not showing her complete hand, at least. "She also thought music and eating meat should be banned," she said, playing dumb, "and was obsessed with her own shit. Let's not take her ideas as gospel."

"There's always a seed of truth in the madness," Kaetus replied.

That little spark of hope, the one she refused to let fester and die, even when things hit rock bottom during the Nexus crash, took her over. "People can change, you know. And do. You're wrong."

Another puff of smoke filled the air, and Vetra wanted to shove that cigarette somewhere else. "Facts say otherwise. As we sit here talking, the Pathfinder's getting angrier. He's already pissed off the Resistance and the Nexus with his demands. I assumed he would."

Scott was hyper focused when he was angry, she knew this. "I don't think Ryder needs help tracking me to whatever shithole we're hiding in." Unless she escaped first, of course. And she would try her hardest to, even if it killed her.

He stood up and pinched the end of his cigarette out with his talons, amused by her show of teeth. Vetra refused to be intimidated, daring him to enter her cell; even though she had troubles standing, she would take him for everything she had. "I intend him to find us. That's the point. Speak to you later, Nyx. It's been enlightening."


	4. Three Days Ago: Aya

_AYA, THREE DAYS AGO / 2820_

The journey to Aya was uneventful. To both Ryders' dismay, it was also a complete waste of time.

Sara's idea for diplomacy was stolen from the Council; the SSV Normandy was a project meant to ease tension between two formally warring races, and she thought a similar project would benefit both the Angarans and the Initiative- this time using the Tempest as a baseline blueprint.

The Moshae agreed with the idea, and put forward the name of Pathfinder Raeka as her choice to spearhead the project. The pair worked well on the Meridian, though Raeka herself remained unconvinced that she was needed; she thought her time would be best spent on a ruthless concentration in Pathfinding for her people, and not building ships.

The Asari Pathfinder was dismissed by both sides. Vederia was content to spend her days hunting down Kett trails, scouting for information. The burden of taking control fell to Avitus Rix, Turian Pathfinder; he would only accept the project if they would work around his schedule, coming only to ground when needed.

Rix was absent today, prioritising escape pod rescues in the Govorkam system over shuffling datapads. It was up to the Ryders to convince the Resistance and the Governor of Aya alone, while the Moshae remained on Meridian.

Even as Scott and Sara went through their negotiations -shaped to an Angaran's senses, thanks to Jaal's tinkering- disinterest was evident, and their pitch was failing. "Enough," said Evfra, looking at the table before Sara could speak again.

Scott grinned. "You haven't seen the vid yet- I'm hurt, Evfra. Thought it would get me extra credit this term."

The joke might not have been understood, but the intent was. "Ryder," Evfra said, then corrected himself. "Ryders, truly. If you are insistent on this monumental waste of time and resources, know you will be providing everything."

"I'm sure we could spare a few people for this, ah, proposal," Paaran said, smoothing the tension. "Provided, of course, we are compensated."

"I understand your hesitation," Sara replied. "But I do believe the Initiative should not be funding the entire project. This is a meeting of minds, after all."

"And wallets," Scott added, after a heavy swallow of juice. Sara kicked him under the table.

"What my brother means," she said, speaking up before he did, "is that we have to be equal on all footing, right across the board. We have to start as we mean to go on with this program, right down to the nuts and bolts." The disbelieving look Evfra flashed Sara made Scott smile; their approach to diplomacy was night and day in difference, and it showed barely five minutes into the meeting.

"You want this more," Evfra said, flicking up his omni-tool again with a grunt. "We will supply some materials, of course, perhaps even skilled workers. But do not expect the Resistance to take on more burdens than we are able to shoulder. How will this benefit our people? You propose that Pathfinder Rix will be in charge, and yet you speak of equality?"

"It's a start," replied Scott. "There's room for an Angaran Pathfinder too. I'm sure there's someone you can put forward from your team that would suit the role. Aya and Voeld are your worlds, but I know there's a need for more."

Efvra sighed, annoyed at obvious. Of course there was need, there was always a need. "I still fail to see the purpose."

"You've seen what we can do," and Sara tapped her head once, alluding to SAM. "Even without access to the Vaults and Meridian, Milky Way technology can -and will- benefit your people, generations to come. A combined Pathfinder project is a symbol, a sign of friendship between us. Think of all we can achieve in this galaxy, together."

Scott bit the inside of his cheek to stop the smile. Sara always could lay it on thick, but he knew it would work, it always did. "Those are lovely words," Evfra said, glowering down his nose. "But in practise, I find that life is not as fair as planned for. In reality, someone always shoulders the heavier burden."

"Then we can just take it in turns holding it." Scott shrugging at the problem. "Like buying drinks for each other. This is going to be an alliance we want for our children's children, no? So let's lay the foundations and go to the bar- figuratively speaking. But if you want to go for real, I won't say no- it's cocktail hour somewhere."

Everyone in the room looked at him. Sara pinched her nose. "How," she said after a beat, "how are you still alive? Why has no one shot you yet?" His sister planned everything down to the last millimetre; he damn well knew the jab was laid out to soothe Angaran tempers.

Considering the smiles and muted chuckles from the table, it worked. "Believe me, they've tried," said Scott. "I got the scars."

Evfra shook his head. "I often wonder the same, Sara Ryder," he said, using her full name in an attempt to separate her from her brother. "How is the Pathfinder still alive? You brother is an infuriating presence in my life; somehow the universe itself is complicit in his survival, despite the manner he conducts himself."

If Sara wanted him to act the fool, then she got for it. Scott gave Evfra a mock toast before he finished his drink. "I'll drink to that- can't help that I'm born charming," he said.

"Charm gets you so far," Paraan said, amused. "Actions take you further."

"We have proven ourselves to you," replied Sara, happy to take the conversation back on track. "And will again. Pathfinder Rix, though not present, has already said he is willing to co-lead this, and I think you'll find his track record interesting."

The negotiation went in circles, as these meetings often did. Scott was still content to let his sister lead, despite having the lack of experience. As he pondered his escape, his omni-tool vibrated with several notifications of unread messages.

 _-They appear to be from Ms. Sidera Nyx, Pathfinder._

Even if was just a vid about cats he would take it, making his mind up to leave. "Important call about security," he said. The meeting was winding down, anyway. "Sorry." He found a quiet space outside the armoury before he spoke. "Hey Sid. Anything wrong?"

"I can't get through to Vetra," came out in a rush.

Scott shook his head. "That's it?"

"Don't say it like that," Sid's shrill tone made Scott pause. "I can't get through on any of her channels. Any of them, Ryder."

He bit down his laughter. "That's all? She's meeting with some buyers at the docks. She mutes her comms when she's working."

Static bubbled through the speaker, and he knew she was pacing. "Something is weird."

"Define weird?" While he was glad to leave the Resistance meeting, dealing with a hysterical teenager wasn't exactly the bonus to playing hooky he expected.

"Look, this is going to sounds stupid- but she didn't call me Sid. She always calls me that when she messages me. The email was really weird, Ryder. No one calls me Sidera." She was aware of how small it sounded. "I know this is overkill, but just check for me."

"She sent me a message a few hours ago, I'll check." Scott pulled up the email Vetra sent him an hour ago about requisitions. Nothing seemed out of tone- not every message they sent to each other was covered in hearts, after all. "Seems fine to me. But Vetra's literally ten minutes from my location. I can check for you and eyeball her myself, if you want."

"Ugh! That's what I've been saying," she said, like he was the biggest idiot alive. "Her tracker says she's in Aya with you, but-"

"You track your own sister?" Scott asked, frowning at his omni-tool.

"You don't?"

Scott tried not to snort. "We have suit readouts for missions. Let me just pull them up, if it makes you feel better. Just need to connect us to the Tempest. Suvi, SAM- where's Vetra?"

Suvi cleared her throat before speaking. "Sorry, mouthful of tea. Readout says Aya port, of course. Have you lost her?" Her tone was warm, teasing her commander over his errant girlfriend. "I can poke my head out the window and wave, if you want. SAM?"

 _-Ms. Anwar is correct. Ms. Nyx's vitals are normal, and she appears to be located in Aya's docks. Accessing the Tempest's camera feeds now._

"Something's not right," Sid grumbled. "I know it's not."

"Oh, hello!" Suvi said, and all of them heard the smile in her voice. "Is this Sid? Nice to hear from you again."

Sid ignored the greeting. "I know you think I'm being a drama queen."

"Oh no," Scott said, in a tone that very much suggested he did. "Never that. And not at all something to tell Vetra about when she comes back from her supply run."

"Ugh. Fine," Sid said, voice muffled as she put her head in her hands. "Call me back when you reach her, okay?"

SAM spoke after Sid closed her comm. _-If I may add: Ms. Nyx's suit readout appears to be set in a looping algorithm. Searching: there is no visual presence of her through the Tempest's cameras. Should I access Aya's security network to confirm, Pathfinder?_

"That would be sensible- yes," said Suvi, seconds before Scott could.

Scott's stomach flipped. "Do it subtly, SAM. don't piss off our friends."

 _-Of course. Accessing Aya's camera network now, bypassing security protocols. After a beat, SAM spoke again. There is no evidence of Vetra Nyx anywhere on Aya port, or the city itself. Should I widen my search beyond Aya City?_

Scott pulled out the team wide comm. "All of you, to the docks now. SAM, pull up the location for the suit readout- coordinate here. Give me the entire feed of the place since our arrival."

At least two of the team were tipsy, with Peebee sliding into drunk if she wasn't careful. Drack still held his flask in his hand and stared at him. All of them stood around a waist high crate, where the signal pulsed from. "You're all seeing this? This is meant to be Vetra."

"Where is she?" Peebee asked. The crate held Vetra's armour attached to what she recognised as a medical scanner, with Vetra's omni-tool on top. "If this is a joke, then-"

"It's not," and Scott scanned around them.

 _-There appears to be fragments of blood on the armour, Pathfinder. It matches the profile of Ms. Vetra Nyx, and is appropriately two hours old. A sodium hypochlorite solution has been poured in the area; I hypothesise it was used to cover evidence of a struggle. It is possible, however, to trace a signature of the solution from here._

"So, someone dumped a bleach bomb to cover their tracks," Cora said. "And we're following the bleach. Thank God for SAM."

Liam ran a hand through his curls. "You know I never made it to detective, but doesn't this strike you all as suspicious? A big box of: 'look at me, I'm evidence,' and a trail leading out of it? Someone must've noticed something going on around here."

"No shit." Drack pocketed his flask into the depths of his armour. "Vetra wouldn't up and leave. Not her style."

Ryder followed the trail SAM could track, past the Tempest to one of the ships he recognised as one of the cargo runners used by colonists. "When did this ship dock?"

-Half an hour ago, Pathfinder. The trail ends here; I believe this ship is unrelated to Ms. Nyx's disappearance.

"We should go to Efvra," Jaal suggested. "He would have access to the docking schedule."

"Right. Jaal, Sara, with me. Cora- talk to the guards posted nearby, see if you can find a witness. Drack, Liam- sniff around the docks, see if you can dig something up. Peebee, take the crate to the Tempest and see what you can find with SAM- there has to be something we can trace from it."

As they walked back to the headquarters, Scott found himself getting angry. How did this happen? How was it allowed to happen, for one. How did Vetra get taken in the middle of the day in the middle of a busy, working dock?

Efvra took one look at Scott marching though the headquarters and carefully put down his datapad. "You have returned about the project?" He asked, aware of rumbling anger that followed.

"Fuck the project," Scott said. "A member of my crew has been kidnapped. Under the nose of your security. If we were allowed guns on the port, maybe it wouldn't have happened."

Jaal, flicked his eyes between them both, a hand held between them. "Scott Ryder's _taoshae_ has been taken, Evfra. He will stop at nothing until she is safe."

A hand on his shoulder squeezed him once. "You should calm down," Sara said quietly.

"You're mistaken there, Sara Ryder," said Evfra, looking Scott up and down. "Keep that anger in your heart, Pathfinder." He pulled out his omni-tool, and pointed at the monitors opposite them. "We had three ships from your settlements looking to dock today, and one unknown- we scanned it as coming from Kadara. It might be connected- I shall give you all we have on them."

Scott stabbed a finger in the air, centimetres from Efvra's chest. "Not good enough."

"I've also paged our head of security to speak to you. I believe your Second is already dockside, do you trust her to deal with the matter?"

"Yes." Before things could escalate, Scott's omni-tool rang for a vid-call request from a signal he recognised as the Charlatan's mouthpiece. Did they know something? "I'm taking this," he told the room, not asking for permission.

A blue holo of an Angaran flashed in front of them, and the sender bowed. "Pathfinder. I wish I were calling with good news, but I have a message to give you."

"Keema Dohrgun." Efvra said, tilting his head. "Interesting allies you have," he said to Scott.

"I can say the same to you, Efvra De Tershaav," she replied, purring at the man. "Long time no see, my dear."

Efvra raised a brow. "This is not a social call."

"Quite. I have a vid message to show you, Pathfinder. Sending it now."

If he was in better place, Scott would've welcomed Keema's flirts and used them to rile Evfra. Instead he pinched his noise. "SAM, play the vid."

An image of a Turian he recognised sat in front of a camera, the room bare behind him. A window with a nondescript background framed it, and Scott tried to work out where it was being sent from. "You know who I am. You know what I want," Kaetus said, brusque and to the point. "I know who you are, Charlatan. Your time is coming, but not today. You might like to play in the shadows, but I will pull you into the sun."

Scott frowned over the drama. His last memory of the speaker wasn't pleasant, guilt rolling in his stomach over his duplicity in Reyes's power play. Kaetus was the very definition of the unwavering soldier, protective of Sloane and their cause. It seemed the broken man who called for his head was living up to his threats.

"He is Kaetus, formally of the Outcasts," Jaal said to a thoughtful Efvra. "Turian loyalty is infamous in the Milky Way."

"If you don't give me what I want, I will do more," the message continued. "Get me Scott Ryder, or Hercules goes to the mountains. You have six standard hours after this message, to sent him dead or alive to these coordinates."

"Where is that?" murmured Efvra, eyeballing the scrolling numbers.

"Somewhere in the Dar'hegah system," Sara replied, the first to pull up the information from her tool. "There's nothing there but Scourge and over-mined planets."

"Oh, and Ryder," the message continued, "if you're watching this- your pet smuggler is safe. For now. I'll let her live if you come to me willing." A image of Vetra flashed on the screens, lying on some filthy floor, shivering into a blanket. Scott gripped the table, furious. Kaetus laughed, once. "We could even settle it with a duel. You like those, don't you?" His face appeared closer into the camera, smirking as he switched it off.

"H _ercules goes to the mountains_?" Sara quoted back, looking at her angry brother and his quiet team. "What does that mean?"

"Not important," replied Keema over the comms, implying that it was. "The message was sent via a scrambler. Most of my associates of a certain frequency have seen this, which I assume was the point. We are still trying to trace the sender."

His omni-tool lit up. Sid, again. He closed it off with a snap. "SAM, Suvi- can you find the source?"

"If Keema would be willing to send her frequency channel and the original message, I can try," Suvi replied. Or we hack them, was the silent addendum.

"I'll ask it if he won't," said Sara, looking at Keema's holo. "Is this associate of yours going to sell my brother out?"

"Of course not. You should check your email, Pathfinder. Our mutual friend has a few things to say on the matter. Keema out." The holo flickered before it closed, and all of them stared at Scott.

It occurred to Scott that it was perhaps best to move out of the headquarters of the Resistance, since Efvra was still watching him. "Reconvene on the Tempest. Jaal, please check the security footage here, which I'm sure Efvra will allow."

"I willing to help with all that I can," came the reply. "Good luck, Scott Ryder," and Efvra held out a hand in the Angaran way. Scott mirrored it, turning on his heel to leave in silence.

Sara squeezed his shoulder again. Before she could even try to say something else, he ignored her and called Sid back. "Hey, sorry you got cut off."

"If you ignore me again I am flooding the servers of the Tempest with Blasto cartoons," she said. "The really shitty Hanar ones too."

"Sorry Sid," he said, wondering how to explain Vetra's disappearance to her own sister. "There was a message and-"

"I know," she said. "Shit's on the Nexus too, but it's being hushed up. Some toolbag sent a video to Operations, demanding your head. Said there was six hours to give it, or bombs would go off in colonies and here in the Nexus. Kandros has security everywhere; this place is on lock down. Tann's tried to cover it up as a training exercise, but no one believes it."

"Was the sender from a Turian named Kaetus? We got one too. He's part of the Outcasts. Or was."

The static almost made her words inaudible, and Scott wondered what scramblers Sid used to get through to him. "That's the one. Please kill him."

Scott laughed, though wasn't exactly sure what he found funny. "Working on it. If you want to help, pull up everything you can on the bastard. Give me every known associate he has- access Vetra's contacts if you need to. She can yell at us later."

"Already sent everything I got so far to Suvi, who -unlike you- answers her comms," and her tone seethed in the same tempered rage he heard so rarely in Vetra. "Please get my sister," followed after, bravado silent in her subvocals.

"I will, and keep in touch with whatever you'll find. Ryder out."

Information dripped in slowly, and most of the team gathered in the meeting room of the Tempest. The vid feeds from the Docks were missing Vetra's kidnapping, suggesting either a clever hack or bribery.

Cora had interviewed all the guards, but they saw nothing- which in itself was suspicious. Liam cornered one that apparently made his "cop senses tingle," and permission was given by Efvra to interrogate her, should the need arise.

"What's the plan, Ryder?" Cora asked him, a hand on his elbow. "There's a vid request from Tann incoming. Nice of someone to finally notice."

Scott chewed a thumbnail. "Need to check over what we have, I'll deal with Tann later." He knew exactly what the Director would say, and Scott didn't trust his own judgement in diplomacy.

News of another video ransom note surfaced from the Ama Daravs on Havarl, who had intercepted a message to the Roekarr. That made it the third video sent within the hour, and Scott wondered if there were more sent to other parties. "Can you make anything of that?" He asked Suvi, looking at the data.

Suvi bit her lip before answering. "So far, all these videos have a similarity," she said. "They've been send through several scramblers. The more information we have, the easier it is to narrow down, so if you can get access to the Roekarr servers, it'll help. SAM can't narrow it down to even one system at moment, it keeps on bouncing."

Peebee's poking of the crate also amounted to nothing. The equipment matched the serial numbers of a stolen medical scanner destined for Prodromos, and was jury-rigged to mimic a breathing, functioning Turian. "Waste of expensive tech," she said. "Might be able to salvage something else- I'll check out who's capable of even hacking it, these things have tight fail safes."

"I might have an idea," Jaal said, gesturing to the screen. "I recognised something from the first vid." He pulled it up on screen, forwarding it to look at a large plant poking through the window. "That is _immisha_. It only grows in Havarl, and is highly toxic. The message must be sent from there."

Kallo blinked. "You suggest we go to the Faroang system over a leaf? It could be faked."

"But why fake a leaf?" Gil replied. "That's one hell of a bluff."

"There's also the matter with the Roekarr," Cora said. "We need access to their network to establish when and where their message was received. We could send in a team to retrieve the data."

Jaal chuffed. "You are mistaken if you believe the Roekarr will hand over the information to us- we will be shot on sight. My Mothers tell me Scott has quite the bounty on him."

"So we steal it," Scott said, making his mind up. "Kallo, prepare a course to Havarl. I need to go speak to the guard Liam found before we go." His remembered his sister then, pleased she was here. "You can deal with Director Tann, Sara. He wants a Ryder, but he didn't specify which. If I speak to him, I might regret something."

The quiet laughter from the others at least lightened the mood a little. "Best job ever," Sara replied. "Thanks."

Scott nodded at them. "All right, we all know what we're doing. Give me half an hour to speak to this guard," he said.

Drack pulled him aside before he left. "You look like you want to kill something," he said. "I know the feeling, but keep your head in the game, kid. Do what you do best, and let me charge in face first. We'll get Vetra back that way."

"Fucking politics," he said, leaning against the railings to calm down, slumped over the edge.

"Morda got a similar message earlier," Drack said. "Dealing with her now to cough up the goods for Suvi." Scott mumbled something he could hear. "Vetra ain't gonna be happy if you lose your quad over this," Drack said, looking down at him. "So screw your head back on."

Scott finally looked up from his slump. "Still want to kill something."

At that Drack chuckled. "Vetra's tough. She can deal with the hand dealt to her- I've known her longer than you. She's going to be there with a gun in her hands and selling them back their teeth, I know it. And you do too."

The image was enough to almost make him smile. "Then let's go find her."


	5. Present Day II

PRESENT DAY / 2820

Kaetus was right, to her annoyance. The Oblivion comedown was an absolute bitch to get over, and she was furious that it was in her system to begin with.

Vetra had already thrown up everything she could into the bucket so thoughtfully provided by her captors, her aching stomach bruised from the heaving. She was freezing, shaking so hard she could feel her teeth chatter in her skull. There was no choice but to ride out the sickness, and Vetra rolled on her back to plan her escape.

She knew she had to eat something to survive, and had to make a decision about the food. The ration wrappers were standard issue dextro, but seals could always be tampered with. In the end she caved and tried the water, her sore throat cramping in relief as she drank.

The light flickered again. She closed her eyes and pretended to sleep, trying to work out how long she had been awake- the concept of time was hard to gauge in a room with no view. Vetra had no clue where she was, but guessed a ship, maybe somewhere with an unbreathable environment. Recycled air had a certain quality to it after you tasted it enough times.

The door opened outside her cell. All she could smell was metal and gun oil, and her own damn vomit. Since Kaetus left her, she was checked on occasionally by a Human and a Salarian, and it was the latter now she could sense. "You're awake," he said, behind her back. "I can tell."

Vetra sighed and sat up from the floor, sober enough to talk. "I was trying to sleep."

"I'm a licenced nurse," said the Salarian. He was speaking Galactic to her, his accent evident without a translator. "And you are sick. I have something to help with the Oblivion withdrawal," and held up a needle and a pill bottle. "I have a duty of care to maintain, even if you are a prisoner."

Vetra stood up as straight as she could. "You come in here with those and I'll be shoving them up your cloaca," she replied, voice rough. "Try me."

"My orders are to keep you healthy." He sighed and pocketed the needle gun again. "Fine." He thumped the wall twice, and three guards came in; the same Human as before, but this time a Turian and a Krogan joined her. Doable, maybe. If she reached them first.

"If you won't accept this voluntarily," said the nurse, "then I will forced to restrain you."

"Oh, just you?" argued the Human. "Off you jog, then. We'll be right behind, don't worry."

The Krogan said nothing. Vetra squinted at him, trying to place the face. One of the Nakmors, guarded Kesh once when Vetra started doing business with her. A biotic, she remembered. "I know you," she said to him. "Kesh does too. Bet Drack even slapped you out of your shell when you were born."

He grunted at the name dropping. "They can kiss my quad. Do as the Salarian says, or you'll be tasting eezo."

"No need for that," she said. "This doesn't have to come down to violence, does it?" Vetra knew damn well it would. She had no gun, no armour and was still riding the mother of all comedowns. All she had was a blanket, her food and a bucket of her vomit. Great.

She watched the Krogan still, his right hand glowing. She would go for his eyes first, and hope she was fast enough. "Well, quite," added the Salarian. "No one will hurt you- it's only a low dose of dolphidone and naxolone, I promise you. I can see you shaking from here, the medicine will help."

"You put that shit in me in the first place, and I'm meant to be grateful for your help?" Vetra leant near the bucket, arms crossed. So far, there was still a steel door blocking their path to her. All it would take was two steps to get there.

"Just business, innit?" Said the Human. "No hard feelings."

"You want to talk business? Fine. We can do that," Vetra said, smiling at the chance to barter. "I can make it worth your while if you let me out. Money, new identity, goods, immunity- you name it, I can get it." Her audience ranged from bored to amused. "You must know who I am. You must know what I can do. The reputation isn't for nothing."

The Human shrugged. "So?"

"I'm on the Pathfinding team for something, and I got fingers in places you wouldn't believe." Vetra kept the anger out of her voice, even though her throat hurt from her sick. "I didn't catch your names."

"You can call me Susan," said the human. "That's there's is Reg," and she pointed at the Salarian nurse. "The big fella is Snooples, and him?" She nudged the Turian with a shoulder. "We call him Sideways Dave, on account of him being a shady bastard."

If that was their real names, Vetra would eat her own fringe. But even being called by a fake name held a certain power, since it would force a response. "You can understand the dilemma, Susan."

"Being that you're in a cell, and we're holding the guns? Yes. But do go on."

"Look, I don't know what happened to get you here in this point in time, but you got to know this is a shit gig. This isn't going to end well- for any of you."

"Really?" said Susan. "I'm having a great time being a merc. Get to shoot things, fuck what I want, and never have to stare at a bloody test tube again in my life. Andromeda life is the tits."

Vetra changed her tact. "And you can do all of that still, just with better pay. I could even boost a friend or two out of cryo, if you want." Out the corner of her eye, she saw 'Dave' stand up straighter- that was his bait, then. Good.

Susan considered the deal, scratching at her chin. "What kind of pay?"

"That's enough," rumbled the Krogan. She wasn't dumb enough to call him Snooples, that's for sure. "We got a job to do. We're doing it. Don't talk," he said, but made sure Vetra saw him clench his fist blue light just enough to remind her of the upper hand.

She looked him over; Krogan's looked after their biotics, and knew they were few and far between in Heleus. How did he end up with this gig, she wondered. Why was he stooping to this- was he banished from New Tuchanka? "What do you know about the mission?" she asked him. "He's using me get to Ryder, even you must know who Ryder is. What do you think my team is going to do when they find you?"

He looked above her head, giving nothing away. "What's he like?" said Susan. She was a gift, Vetra thought. Stupid people were. "Ryder, I mean."

"A good fuck," Vetra replied, knowing her audience; Susan's predictable peals of laughter made her smile, since it meant she was getting somewhere. "And very angry. You know all of Heleus is looking for me," and hoped it was another truth from Kaetus. "Nexus, the Angara, the Collective, the Nakmors- every damn settlement we helped build, even. And there you are, holding the guns."

Their move now, even if there was too many factors in the room to get the jump on them. Trying to bribe four very different people at once wasn't the end game for Vetra, but rather placing the seed that she could, and might be able to sell them something. It worked twofold: one, someone might approach her privately after, and two- they would assume the others would be thinking the same.

"He's not here," 'Dave' replied. "Quit your shit talking."

"Not now. But soon," and she made a show of leaning on the wall, forcing every centimetre of herself to relax despite the opiate withdrawal her body was going through. "I know my Ryder."

She had reminded the Krogan of her connection to Nakmor; the Human she could bribe with money; the Turian, with sentiment. The Salarian was the hardest to read, but out of all the races, she had trouble understanding them the most. He had blinked twice at the mention of immunity though, so perhaps that was his.

It was a start, but she still had to deal with the fact that she was only armed only with a bucket of sick and her claws. If she fought back, the Krogan would respect her. Susan and Dave could go either way with a show of violence, but she knew the Salarian was desperate to stick her with that needle. Did she trust him- was it really just medicine, like he said?

Hell no. Fine, fight it was. She stood up straight again. "Do we have a deal, then?" She asked them, knowing full well what the answer would be.

The nurse gestured for them to open the door, sighing. The Krogan went in first, and Vetra went out swinging.


	6. Two Days Ago: En Route to Havarl

Scott barely made it to the door before someone else needed him again. He was desperate to get to Harvarl and chase what little leads they had on Vetra's disappearance, and every interruption on Aya was an annoyance.

"Pathfinder, you on the ship?" At least Liam sounded contrite enough about the interruption, even if it was stalling him.

"What is it?" Scott said. He made his mind up then to take Jaal with him to interrogate the guard, sending a message quickly while they talked.

"Sorry, here to add to the shit pile," said Liam. The Tempest's comm line crackled above his head, loud enough for Drack to grumble at it. "Got a call from August Bradley."

Scott leaned against the railings, nodding to Jaal as he approached them in silence. "And?"

"They found the makings of a pipe bomb in Prodromos, was stored in an empty prefab. Shitty raider job too, Bradley says."

"Anyone hurt?" He asked. That Vetra was missing because this amateur group of nobodies had managed to pull off her kidnapping frustrated him the most. _This shouldn't have happened._

"His crew disarmed it in minutes," Liam replied. "It was, and I quote, 'a joke.' There might be more jokes in other colonies, Kaetus threatened them too. Not everyone has Eos's resources to deal with this."

Scott knew what his friend wanted to hear from his Pathfinder. Liam wanted him to say, 'don't worry, we'll get right on that.' But he wouldn't, and Scott wondered why he was okay with being selfish over this. Would Vetra do the same for him? Would she approve of him dropping everything to find her, to ignore the threats to their people?

Instead, he deflected Liam's suggestion with a lie by omission, his father's choice of poison. "I have the report Bradley sent," he said. "I'll see it for myself after I deal with this guard. They had inside help here, might be a lead."

As soon as he hit the doors to leave, his omni tool flashed again. Reyes Vidal was calling, and this time from his personal comm. "You're a hard man to catch, Scott Ryder," Reyes said as he answered. "This is the third time I've tried to get through."

"Treat them mean, keep them keen. Isn't that your MO, Vidal?" Scott was heartily sick of staring at a comm link. He just wanted to do something- not the endless discussions about doing. "I'm suddenly popular, I can't think why."

Reyes chuckled. "Funny what a little bounty can do."

Scott was in no mood for pleasantries, and strode outside the Tempest to face the humidity of the port again. "What do you have for me?"

"To business, then," Reyes smoothed over. "Two weeks ago, Kaetus escaped, and we had to-"

 _Slippery bastard,_ Scott thought. And not just Kaetus. "You never thought to tell me?" He said, interrupting. "A man who threatened to wear my skin as a mask? You never thought to say, 'by the way Ryder, no big problem, but the guy who wants you dead is loose.'"

The startled looks from a pair of Initiative scientists by the docks gave him pause. He was shouting, he knew. Scott stopped his pacing to stare at a cargo ship take off in the horizon, willing his anger to calm down. "Come now, Ryder," Reyes replied. "What's one more person?"

Scott laughed once. "If you were here, you'd be on the floor by now."

"Promises, promises." He stared at the trails a ship had left, white lines in the air. The humidity made his shirt stick to his back, and he was beginning to see why both Jaal and Vetra were uncomfortable here.

Why did he just remind himself of her, like she would be on the ship still if he went back? She was taken because of conversations like this, after all. "I underestimated him," Reyes said, filling in the silence Scott left in the static. "Kaetus was half starved and dying when I saw him last, a mad dog with no teeth."

"He still slipped your leash," Scott said, throwing the idiom back.

A pause followed, then a gusty sigh came though the speaker. "He seemed broken, Ryder. Keema suggested we leave him a pistol, as an act of mercy. This escape was, ah, a surprise."

There was still no apology in his words. "What do you have on him?"

"All we have I will send you. I have looked here in Kadara, and found no trail. Kaetus still has friends, but there's not much left of the Outcasts here. I am sending extra security to your colony of course, just in case."

It was the barest fucking minimum, Scott thought. He remembered almost shoving those words back into Efvra's face too. "Thank you," he said, and hoped it sounded genuine enough.

"The least I could do, my friend," Reyes replied. "We've been watching Sloane's last known associates for awhile now, but they've done nothing untoward."

"Can he live up to his threats?" Kaetus mentioned hurting every one of his intended audience in his message should they fail to hand over the Pathfinder, but most the colonies and Scott's allies refused, even contacting Scott in a reassurance that their alliance remained firm. Still, though- the threat was there, and Kaetus has proved his word in Prodromos, even if it was a failed attempt.

The static clicked over the comm before Reyes spoke. "Perhaps some." The reply was pensive, and Scott gave Reyes some credit for the honesty. "I know he is proposing to hit every ally you have, but I find it an empty threat. I suspect he is playing a shell game."

It lined up to what Scott was thinking; Kaetus's team had to be small, Heleus only had so many resources to spread around. "And we have to find the pea," he said. "There's a lot to guess at."

"Exactly so." Reyes chuckled, amused at the image. "We're all scrambling to lift up garbage cans to check for bombs that we're not thinking things through- which is how he wants it to be. It is good we are talking, yes? Our strength is our numbers. One rabid dog will not divide our friendship."

 _Us, we, we're_. Clever use of language, Scott thought. But if they were really in it together, then Reyes would've coughed up Kaetus's escape the moment it happened. "I have to go," he said. "Keep in touch, Vidal. I'm chasing a lead to a-" and he paused, unsure whether to tell him the truth. "A friend of mine. Hopefully it will come to something. Ryder out." Scott closed the line before Reyes could respond.

Jaal had been quiet for the entire call, content to lean on the rails and people watch. "You don't trust him," he said, falling back into step with Scott.

He didn't know how to answer that. Of all his decisions, it was his handling of Kadara that crept into his thoughts late at night. Did he really trust Reyes still? Scott knew he was played by the Charlatan like a chess piece, but they had a friendship, of sorts. "Come on, let's go see this guard Liam found us. You want to be good cop or bad?"

"Good? Surely we would both be-" Jaal screwed his face up. "Ah. This. Liam tried to explain this after that awful vid he made us watch, I still do not understand. Why would you chose to be terrible at your job? Your bad cops would rather eat -what was it again- coffee and do-nots? Rather than work. How would laziness help our interrogation?"

Scott gave a small smile, thankful he picked Jaal for this, though the thought of Drack dangling their suspect over the port railings still had an appeal. "Then we're both be good cops and wing it, how about that? No do-nots for us."

The guard was left in an empty immigration office, clearly bored at waiting. Aya was a hidden sanctuary even to the Angara, and the authorities limited who could enter and stay via a strict lottery system. It angered Scott that despite all the difficulty in reaching the place, their tight little ' _raba garessen_ ' paradise was still not safe from assholes like Kaetus.

" _Skutt_." The guard swore under her breath when they came in, surprised at his appearance. Was she not expecting the Pathfinder? Interesting.

Her omni-tool and weapon were already taken from her when they arrived, though she remained free of cuffs. Scott sat opposite the table and waited for a reaction, his eyes never leaving her face. "No, Scott," he replied, aware of the homonym of his name and the Angaran word. "Close enough I suppose, but I bet I'm both to you."

She examined a gloveless hand. "Ask your questions. I've already told your Second all that I know. That I'm still here is a waste of time for us all."

"That's a pretty mark on your face," Jaal said, pointing out a bruise. "Afiba Adeola. That is your name, yes? Member of the Resistance for three years now, clean record, excellent shot with a rifle. You are due to be in Voeld in three weeks, according to your schedule. Your time at Aya draws to a close, but I'm sure your Mothers will be happy to see you again."

"It was an accident," Afiba said, sullen. "It happens."

"Interesting. Looks more like a punch to me," Jaal replied.

"It's not."

 _-She is lying, Pathfinder. Her heart rate has increased and her pupils are dilated. I suggest scannin-_

Scott pulled out his omni-tool before SAM could finish. "You can't do that!" Afiba stood up, angry at the invasion. "Not without permission."

 _-There are traces of a sodium hypochlorite solution on her armour and hands. It is the same composite as the one found on the docks._

Thank God for SAM. He wouldn't have caught the facial injury either, unless Jaal pointed it out. "Vetra has a mean right hook," he said. "Mine is worse."

Afiba sat back down, comfortable enough to smirk at him. "Is that a threat, Human? You can't touch me. You have no authority here."

Scott snorted. "I thought to you guys a punch was a hello. Or have I been doing it wrong?"

"Only to friends," Jaal said, smiling. "For enemies, a punch is still a punch."

He was too tired for this. "Jaal's found something interesting on the cameras," he said to Afiba, lying through his teeth. "Not as scrubbed clean as you think. It's nice having an AI in my head, helps me sift for those needles."

The idiom was ignored by the Angarans. "Perhaps we could make a deal," Jaal said. To his credit, he did not blink at the lie; all they could find on the camera feed was a well crafted loop, and tampered evidence of Afiba being only minutes late for her post instead of the ten mentioned from other witnesses. "You tell us the truth, and you'll have an easier punishment. It won't effect your Mothers too much. You won't be able to provide for them anymore, of course. But your family will be spared."

She physically flinched at the words that Scott raised his eyebrows. Seems Jaal knew what buttons to push, even if he didn't. "How much were you paid?" Scott asked her. "Or do you just hate us all that much?"

"You take food and security from our mouths," Afiba said. "Of course I hate you. You think this alliance will last? It won't."

"You stink of bleach," Scott replied. "It's on your hands. Had to clean up that blood quickly, I guess. Just tell us everything you know now, we've all got places we'd rather be."

"You must realise, your complicity in this unsettles the balance of Heleus." Jaal crossed his arms, falling into 'bad' cop even if he didn't understand the role completely. "We might have won the battle, but the war on the Kett is still our reality. We are stronger as one against them, surely you must realise this."

"Not for our people," she replied. "Aliens, _vesegara_ like him do nothing. My family suffers in poverty." Afiba shook her head. "You do not understand, Ama Darav." She spat Jaal's family name like a curse. "Not all of us are born so highly as you."

The Ana Darav legacy would follow Jaal everywhere, a shadow he could never quit; but Scott knew the weight of a family name too. "Enough," Jaal said, pulling up the omni-tool. "I have an interesting message from Efvra, Pathfinder. Headquarters have found a recent payment of four thousand credits to Afiba's account. It's been traced back to a Halissa P'Mera from Kadara. Sounds Asari, does it not? Hmm."

The evidence of the money and mentioning Efvra was enough to break her. Afiba lowered her head, and Scott looked at Jaal and nodded. "Definitely an Outsider," he said. It was an educated guess, though one easy enough to confirm via SAM.

"What about Kaetus Vexen? do you know this name?" Jaal added, showing a grainy portrait of him to Afiba for her to look at.

"Not that one," she said, sullen now. "I only met P'Mera on Voeld. About five months ago, before I came here. All I had to do was help them get the Pathfinder's Turian on board their ship- I would be paid extra for scrubbing the feeds."

"Who do you mean by them?" Scott leaned forward, alert now. They were getting somewhere.

Afiba slumped lower into her chair. "I met another Turian, a male. And a female Human was with him, brown furred like you. Said they were from Eos, and they answered the right code names P'Mera gave me months ago."

Scott blinked. Five months? Kaetus was still in prison then; he had been planning for this longer than they thought. "What code names did they give you?"

"Dionysus and Bendis," she said to the table.

 _-Gods from Thracian myth, Pathfinder,_ said SAM. _It might be related to the codewords in the vids Kaetus sent, in regards to Hercules._

"The security cameras, the bleach stains, the trail of money to Kadara," Jaal said. "All of this does not look good for you, Afiba. But I suppose we promised leniency for an honest answer."

 _-Your blood pressure is spiking at high levels, Pathfinder,_ SAM warned. Scott chuffed in annoyance at the internal interrupt, unaware he was clenching his fist. Four thousand credits for her complicity? That was nothing.

"You absolute cunt," he said to Afiba, unable to hide his anger.

Jaal startled at the language. "Ah, Scott. That word will not land as you intended," he replied. "We see a woman's sex as a thing of beauty, the first cradle of life and creation from our Mothers, and-"

"She knew what I meant." He stood up so fast the chair fell over, hands on the table. "I'm done. Efvra can make good of his promise and deal with her. She's told me all that I need to know."

Scott walked back to the Tempest in silence and ordered takeoff as soon as he boarded. Everyone left him alone on the ship, even his own sister, but an incoming vid call from Pathfinder Rix meant he still had to deal with people. After Drack had finished yelling at Morda about the ransom, the meeting room was his.

A few buttons and Pathfinder Rix was on the other end of the line. "Ryder," Avitus nodded through the holo. "With friends, I see." Jaal had followed him still to sit behind him, a mother hen in pink. Even Drack refused to budge from his comfy lean by the railings, watching Scott with interest.

"You can talk freely," Scott replied. "Line's clear."

"We're in the Dar'hegah System, I'm sure you can guess why. Pathfinder Raeka is dealing with the threats to our colonies, don't worry about that. You can focus on finding the scum who took your crew."

Rix was in the system Kaetus demanded he should be in. The other Pathfinders were covering for Scott, and the thought was enough to crack a smile in response, a rare thing considering. "You didn't have to-"

"But we did," Avitus talked over his sentiment. "All we found were a few ships, the usual Heleus raider scum. They were looking to claim the reward themselves, and were attacking anything in their radius. Pathfinder Damali and I dealt with them." Avitus paused, hands behind his back.

"Is there anything else?" Scott said, aware of the hesitation.

"I should mention the Roekaar presence we came across, I don't know if they're connected to all of this. They've gotten better, definitely more organised than the pirates. Was a close call and we got lucky, seems they have some new toys. We've snagged a few of their weapons for requisitions, they've been calibrated something nasty."

"So much for cutting the head off a snake," Scott mumbled. He remember reading a few worrying APEX reports about a bulkier Roekaar resurgence in Voeld, wondering where it all came from.

Avitus quirked his head, working out the analogy. "That never works, not with these bastards. The separatist cells I dealt with on Taetrus were similar; pointless removing individual weeds when you need a flamethrower, but that's not my call to make. I've passed the information on to the Resistance anyhow, maybe they know what we were dealing with."

Scott drummed his nails on the commboard before he realised what he was doing. "You think Kaetus and his Outcasts had anything to do with them? A new alliance, maybe?" He thought of August Bradley's message to him, then. Surely something so shoddy sounding as a couple of pipebombs strapped together with duct tape would almost be insulting to this new breed of insurgence.

The holo stuttered again, static breaking the silence as Avitus thought through his answer. "My gut says no, but I wouldn't discredit them, not yet. I assumed the Roekarr got a little message from Kaetus too?"

Jaal answered for him. "My Mothers intercepted one. Same demands as the others, and quite a handsome reward for Ryder's head."

"What do you even know about Kaetus?" Scott asked, frowning. "He mentioned meeting you once when Sloane was alive, I assumed you shared some sort of Initiative training before you came."

Avitus shrugged, a human gesture. "I know as much as you," he replied. "I saw him during one of those Golden World show reel parties Jien Garson liked to throw. Macen spoke to him more, but then, he would." He shook his head once at the memories, righting himself before speaking again. "Anyway, we're in luck. I managed to bag one of the Outcasts at the navpoint mentioned. Seems he woke up just in time for our meeting."

Avitus gestured off camera and a pair came closer. An armoured Turian held up a sagging Human, and even in the flickering holo screen Scott could see blood dripping down a broken nose. "Sorry about our 'friend,'" said the Turian. Elvera, Scott thought her name was. She held the scruff of the Human's shirt by her claws, shaking it once. "He fell over."

Drack rumbled a laugh at the sight of their captive. "Looks like he fell over several times," he said, wide mouth showing his teeth. "Good." Jaal looked away from the show of violence, arms crossed.

"This here is Dimitri. Used to be part of the Nexus security, loyal to Sloane enough to follow her to Kadara. Tell the nice Pathfinder what you told us," Avitus said, patting the man on the shoulder. "Then you can go lie down again and the doctor can see to you."

"I told you, I don't-"

Another shake from Elvera and Dimitri flinched. "Tell us again. I'm sure Ryder's keen to know what you scum are doing to his missing requisitions officer."

"My orders were to wait for anyone with the Pathfinder," he said, a fresh stream of blood dripping down his face. "Then we return to Havarl. I don't know about anything else, I swear it. I know Kaetus has Nyx, but I don't know where. I was only told what I needed to know."

Scott cocked his head. His gut twinged at the coincidence. "Havarl? Why Havarl?"

"Fuck knows," Dimitri replied, distressed now. "I was kept in the dark. I swear. Kaetus told me to sit and wait, so I did. You don't argue with him. I don't know what else to tell you, man."

"He doesn't," Avitus drawled, patting their flinching captive again. "If you trust my judgement on this. Harvarl makes no sense to me, but I assume that's where you're going? I'll send you the navpoint Dimitri gave us."

"I am," Scott replied. That an ex-Spectre was beating a suspect wasn't hitting his morality issues as much as he assumed. Funny how little of it mattered anymore. "I'll let you know what we find."

"We can handle the dregs here, it's the least we can do. Good luck with your search- let us handle the rest, Ryder. We can take it."

As soon as the holo switched itself off, Scott's stress returned. Drack thumped his shoulder with his, then left them alone. Jaal looked him over, blue eyes sharp even in the shadows. "I will follow you wherever you go, Ryder," he said, once the silence got too much. "Even through this darkness. But I worry what it is doing to you."

"So bring a light," Scott replied, ignoring his friend's attempt at reaching out. "I got things to do," he said, a casual dismissal. "See you later, Jaal."

Scott buried himself in solitude instead of dealing with the rest of his crew. Director Tann's emails were passed over again, but the message from the mayor of Prodromos provided some relief; it was another little slither of hope to their mission of finding Vetra:

 _Pathfinder,_

 _Kosta called me about the bomb we found. Let us deal with this insurgence ourselves, we don't need hand holding from the Nexus and a Pathfinder. I've had worse from drunk raiders during my patrols in the Skyllian Blitz, and that's saying something. Good luck with your search, I have sent all we have of the evidence we found._

 _-August Bradley_

All was left was to ride out the journey to Havarl. Scott managed to sleep for a few hours, despite his rage, even if the bed smelt of Vetra still. The last memory of her was under the covers, of waking her up with a cup of dextro tea and falling into her warmth after his shift, a quiet moment of intimacy before she left him alone.

It was such a visceral stab of longing in his gut that Scott had to reach out to her somehow. Vetra had several channels and aliases she used for work, and he tried them all.

 _Vetra,_

 _If this finds you somehow, you know that I'm turning the universe upside down to find you, right? No other way for it._

He didn't know what else to say. Neither were poetic with their feelings, and expressed their wants and emotions to a degree of bluntness that made most of their friends uncomfortable. All interspecies dynamics had a certain level of cultural awkwardness, but the pair of them made it work with honesty- even with the fumbling, embarrassing parts neither would dwell on, covering it up with humour.

Despite his reticence, Scott hoped she knew that he was out there and looking for him. That she was loved, and wanted, and needed, and-

 _I love you,_ he typed out anyway. _I never say it enough, do I? But I do. I'm coming for you._

That was enough for him to sit up, scrubbing at his face with a hand. To stop his moping, Scott cleaned and assembled his Widow twice, swapping out mods and chambers to keep his hands busy. The call for landing came as soon as the scope was back in place, relieved to have his armour on and do something else.

Gil rapped his knuckles on Scott's breastplate as soon as they were cleared to go. "Go get our girl back," he told him. "She's the only half decent poker player I have around here, the rest of you are terrible."

Scott startled at the words, aware then at how little he had spoken to anyone since yesterday. There it felt he couldn't stop, his throat to the point of soreness from talking too much. "I will."

They were greeted by Jaal's true Mother as soon as the ramp of the Tempest descended, a rifle slung over her back. Scott allowed himself to be hugged by the woman after Jaal, reluctant to return it. "We shall help you find your _taoshae_ ," Sahuna told him, hand to his cheek. "And will do what you ask," gesturing to the family behind her. Scott recognised some faces, at least, from his time with Jaal. "The Ama Daravs are on your side, Scott Ryder. Do not forget this."

Sara joined them on the ramp, aiming a ration bar into the lip of his chest armour. "Eat, idiot," she said, watching him pick it out with a frown. "You missed breakfast." She paused to take in the view, then pushed past Scott. "This place is beautiful. Did you see the flying pill bugs in the sky? And the plants- _the plants_ , Scott. They're huge."

"And this must be Sara," Sahuna said, amused at the other Ryder's rambling. "I see the family resemblance."

"It's the nose," Sara replied, staring as the Angaran grabbed her hand in an awkward attempt at a human handshake. "Can't escape it. And you must be Jaal's true mother."

Sahuna took his sister's warmth with open arms. "Such a lovely boy, my Jaal. Has he shown you his poetry yet? Such beautiful stanzas. Oh! And quite the chemist, always tinkering away with something. He made me a lovely perfume for Mothering Day."

"Mother," Jaal said, fidgeting on the spot. "Sara and I are quite familiar with the other."

Scott stared at his feet, resisting the urge to pinch his nose and snap. "Do you know which Roekaar base the message was sent to, Sahuna?"

"I do," she said. "Jaal is a most excellent scout. You should you use him."

"So is Scott," Sara said, ruffling her brother's curls. Scott chuffed in annoyance. "I just blow things up."

Pointless talking again, he thought. Time to actually do. "Time to go," Scott said. "Peebee, Jaal, you're with me- we got a base to infiltrate. Sara, take Cora and Drack to the navpoint Rix gave us yesterday, see what you can find. Liam, stay and keep an ear to the comms. They know we're here, and I want to see what they do."

He walked away, expecting the others to follow. They always did, after all.

Notes and translation:

Raba garessen - "sanctuary trips," the name given for Aya.  
Skutt - "shit" in Angaran. Sounds a bit like Scott, if you squint.  
Vesegara -"uprooted people" or exiles in Angaran. Pejorative for Milky Way species.  
Taoshae - "beloved" in Angaran.

***  
As usual, kudos and comments are awesome. It's a tiny ship, is Scott/Vetra, but always nice to hear from all three of my readers. (Hi guys!)


	7. Present Day III

She was really beginning to resent waking up in a cell.

"Boss will be here soon," a voice said, muffled by the heavy blanket of her drowsiness. It was Turian, male, and annoyed. That would be 'Dave,' then.

"Easy job though," followed another. Female this time, and Human. "But he'll probably want to talk to her. I don't want to kick her awake, you can do it."

"Not yet, ain't time to."

Her face hurt still; of course it would, thanks to the beating. Vetra had managed to get a few shots to her captors before they could get to her, and delivered a head butt hard enough to crunch a flat Salarian nose concave. A glowing fist from the Krogan biotic put her in place, placated enough for the others to eventually pin her down. Another needle was forced into Vetra's neck from her bleeding nurse, and it all went blurry soon after.

She was alive, at least. The drug withdrawal felt less sharp in her system, so maybe her "medicine" was just that; judging by the delightful softness she felt in her carapace, probably not.

"You think she means it?" Susan said. At least it wasn't the Salarian or the Krogan this time, she could eavesdrop for a few minutes. Both of them could sense when she faked sleep; these idiots could not.

A very Turian sigh followed. "Don't start."

Susan still spoke Sol-English, and Vetra was thankful her time on the Tempest shaped a better understanding of it. "I mean pussy flaps there, and her promises." Pussy flaps? That she couldn't translate. Had to be an insult, somehow.

"I know who you mean, genius."

"She's the Pathfinder's bit on the side, right? If he comes, we're fucked. Royally fucked. Gang banged by his team up the arse levels of fucke-"

"I get it," Dave said, sharp in his interrupt. Vetra had to clench her jaw tight to stop her laughter at that delightful mental image; she almost wanted to stay and wait for her rescue, if only for that. Shit, even a thump from Suvi and one would fold; the Human had held her rifle with all the trigger discipline of a toddler.

"He's pretty hot though, not going to lie," Susan said, goading her companion still. "You like that sort of thing?"

A disgusted noise followed. "It baffles me, the stuff you say," 'Dave' replied. His flanging Turian growl still didn't match his fake name, but Vetra couldn't exactly call him _Idiot Two_ to his face. "Didn't you used to be a scientist or something?"

Susan cleared her throat. "Developmental biologist, actually. I was thawed early because of my experiments in suspending dextro-animo cell cultures into levo-based solutions. Means I can grow your plant shit from my soil shit in theory, useful for feeding a bunch of starving Turians. Simple, innit?"

"See, you say shit like that and I'm meant to believe it all, somehow. I saw you eat your rations after you dropped them by the shitter last night, even the Krogan flinched at that. And was that before or after you got drunk enough to tell us all in _great detail_ what Quarian dick felt like? I can't remember. Either way, that's two hours of my life I won't be getting back."

Vetra thought of baiting them to her cell, wondering if it was worth the risk. These two she could take down, no problem. Snatch their guns, take the Turian's armour, hack into whatever network there was nearby and see what she could do. Once the room would stop spinning, anyway.

"Ah, Kan'ah nar Symmony. It was surprisingly big, you know? Or he could've padded out his stimulation ports, not like he got it out of his suit for me to check. But it did vibrate, bet yours doesn't. Girls like that sort of thing, trust me."

Another put upon sigh from Dave. "As if I'd take anything out of your mouth as sense. Please, shut up."

Vetra smiled at their conversation. Stupid people really were a gift, she meant every word of that. These idiots were her ticket out of here, they just didn't know it yet.

She made a show of waking, exhaling a sigh like it was morning. She could hear feet scraping and the rattle of guns being gripped, and she opened her eyes to blink at the spotting lights in her vision. "Princess is awake," Susan said. "There goes our privacy."

Vetra rubbed the soft skin around her eyes with a knuckle, trying to chase the dregs of Oblivion away. "Princess, huh? Where's my hot cup of kava, or did I miss breakfast service?" She spoke a weird mix of English and Cipritine, wondering what their translators were making of it.

"You got water and ration bars," Dave said, pointing with his gun. "Enjoy."

"Rough night?" She asked them, chewing one of her bars. Her empty stomach almost rejected it on principle, considering it was her first solid food in days.

"You scratched me up," said Susan, glowering over her gun. "Got me under my armour."

"Oh. I'm sorry," Vetra replied, though clearly she wasn't. "You'd do the same in my position, I'm sure."

"Bitch." Susan glared to make a point, shrugging her sore shoulder. "Had to crack open a new medigel and everything."

Dave, good Turian that he was, was silent still; Vetra tried another tactic. "I can smell the moonshine from here you know," she said. "Elaaden blend? Rough. I prefer to mix mine with a bit of elava mix, at least I can keep my tooth emamel that way."

They both looked at each other, startled. "You shouldn't be talking," Dave said.

All Susan could do was sniff the armpits of her suit. "We stink that bad?"

Vetra could smell nothing, but knew enough about shitty raiders and their questionable drinking habits. "How long was I out for?" She asked them, forcing herself to sip water slowly.

"About three hours," Susan replied. Judging by Dave's annoyed squint her way, it was the truth.

"Hard to tell time in a cell," Vetra told them. "Must mean that Ryder's deadline is closed, and that means he's still coming. The deal's still on the table, by the way. I can get you what you want, there's always time."

Susan swallowed. "When you say anything, do you-"

The swing of the outer door silenced her, and Vetra whipped her head around to try and see what was behind it. One long corridor, some crates tucked to the side. Walls looked like they came from a standard prefab, which meant she was planetside, not on a ship. That narrowed it down, considering the recycled air. They were on a base that needed a filter system, and there was no shortage of dead planets and moldering moons to hide out in Heleus.

Kaetus loomed in the entrance, his armour and guns a stark contrast in quality compared to the pair of them. Vetra saluted a sarcastic wave from her cell, watching with amusement as Dave and Susan snapped to attention. "Leave," he told them, never once looking their way. "I need to speak to our guest alone."

He stood over her this time, anger rolling off him in waves. "Hey there." Vetra wrapped her hands around her knees, refusing to move. It was her act of defiance, a casual cover up to her dizziness; she wouldn't stand to attention for him. "How's it going, Vexen? Tough day?"

"Came to tell you that Ryder didn't pay your ransom," he said. "Of course, it meant giving himself up, but you knew he wouldn't. Does that bother you, Nyx? That he cares so little about you? Never even made it to the navpoint."

There was small, tiny part of her that did, of course there was. But she also trusted Scott enough to know he would have a plan, even if he was running on instinct. "Hah, no," she told him. "Scott knows a bum deal when he sees one. I taught him that pros demand payment upfront before they get the goods- you offered a shitty guarantee."

Kaetus leaned against the glass on her cell, one arm above his head. "Advice from a smuggler? Save me."

"It's gotten us out of scrapes before," she said, chewing the last of her bar. "Don't discount it yet."

"Cute," he drawled. "I've baited him to Havarl, and he's falling for it. I made sure he would."

"Oh, so I'm not in Havarl? Narrowing it down, Kaetus," Vetra replied. She was confused, why the rabid pyjack hunt? Why force Scott across Heleus for a showdown, if all he wanted was revenge? "I'll bite," she said, not quite getting it yet. "Why?"

"Does it matter?" Kaetus said, shifting on the balls of his feet. "Can't make it too easy."

Vetra worked out then she still had time to escape. Not a lot, but enough. Scott was forced to loiter before he could get to her, given Kaetus breathing room to set something up. What, she didn't know. If it was plain revenge for the death of Sloane, then she would be dead by now, no question. An eye for an eye, Ryder's Turian for his Human.

Perhaps it came down to plain greed after all, that Kaetus was using her ransom as a fulcrum for something bigger- Nexus big, maybe even Meridian big- and not just for the judgement of a lone Pathfinder. "I love our chats," Vetra said. "I learn so much."

Kaetus chuckled, his anger dissipating at her confusion. He assumed he had the upper hand again, and enjoyed it. "What do you know about the legend of the Pyrenees mountains?" He moved away from her now, positioning himself into an easy stand. "Your Human was a Citadel brat, I doubt he told you much of his culture. It's on Earth after all."

It became apparent then that Kaetus didn't need a special cigarette for his monologues. "I don't know, Scott seems religious to me. Praises that Jesus guy a lot when we're alone," she said. Kaetus snapped his jaw shut in disgust as Vetra smiled at him.

"You only get one of those," leaning forward just enough to level the threat. Vetra put her hand to her chest, a fake act of contrition.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Do go on. Why do I need to know about mountains?" She asked him, cocking her head to one side.

He stared her down again, a weary sergeant dressing down a rookie for insubordination. "They were named in honour of a woman called Pyrene, so the legend goes. She was the daughter of King Bebrykius, and was loved by her people. She was betrothed to the son of a neighbouring tribe, and pledged her life to him."

Fuck this, Vetra thought. And fuck his stories. She imagined herself putting on her armour and holding her favourite gun, riding out his visit in a daydream. "It all sounds Turian," she managed to say, even after a particularly vivid imagining of seeing a spray of bullets cut through the steel door.

"You can always find similarities between anything, if you're desperate enough. Humans have so much shit in their culture that it's hard not to find something of ours in it all."

For once they agreed on something, and she pushed her anger down to a simmer. "That's just normal social interaction with aliens, you know? Show me yours, I'll show you mine. Take it conversational skills aren't taught in basic, or is that further up in the Hierarchy? I never got the chance to know."

Kaetus snorted once and continued his story, this time ignoring the sass. "Pyrene died, because Hercules- you know Hercules, at least? Or Herakles, depending on who's telling it."

Vetra shrugged. She knew the name, sure. Humans used it all the damn time for things. Ice cream, spaceships, vids. "It's the sun of the Attican Beta back home. Shit hole of a System, nothing there but pirates and gas mines." There was some chatter about the name at the back of her mind despite her words, something her drug-fogged synapses refused to reveal. It sounded like a codeword she heard somewhere else, but where?

If she had access to her omni-tool she would've pinged Sid by now, considering how glued the girl was to her comms. Instead Vetra shoved the stab of worry over her sister aside, watching as Kaetus paced outside her cell. "Fitting," he said. "Hercules was this big damn hero, who after his big damn quest violates the sacred code of hospitality and defiles Pyrene. Some stories say she was raped, some that she went along with it. She dies, no matter the version told."

Vetra clamped down her mandibles before they flared in surprise. Didn't take a genius to get what he was hinting at. "Why are you telling me this?"

Kaetus fixed an errant seal of his gloves, looking away from her. "Pyrene gave birth to a snake and ran away, afraid that her family would be angry. She was killed by animals, her corpse desecrated by bandits and vermin. In his remorse, Hercules creates a tomb for her by piling up rocks so high they form a mountain range. It's still there, the Pyrenees. Can even see it from their space."

She resisted the urge to snarl her frustration. "You didn't answer my question."

"You didn't ask the right one."

"In this story," Vetra said, waving her hand at him. "Are you Hercules? Who doesn't love a big damn hero."

The silence swallowed them for a moment. She said it to bait him, to see how far she could toe the line. As an armoured fist swung for the glass of her prison, she knew she had pushed the limits; the glass barely moved despite the strength his punch, but neither did Vetra. Her green eyes never left his face, searching for another reaction. "You're lucky it's not your time to die," Kaetus spat, face tight with rage. "You're a corpse soon, but not now. There's things to do."

She was still useful alive, but not for long. Vetra didn't know if Reyes or Ryder was Hercules at this point in the story, but understood enough to know Kaetus was the one staring at a lonely mountain. You're mine, Vetra thought. But first I have to escape.

Kaetus had righted himself of his anger, standing straighter now. "You want to know something?" She said. He looked at her, suspicious of the sympathy flanging in her voice. "I didn't want Sloane to go that way. It was stupid."

For the first time since Vetra came here, she finally said her name, like the woman was a trickster Spirit too dangerous to mention. "Means shit from you," he spat back. She could hear the grief and rage hum again in his subvocals. "You're lying."

"She was an ironclad bitch," Vetra replied. Kaetus hit the glass again hard enough for it to move this time, vibrating against the steel of her cell. "But I didn't want her dead. I spent months getting Kadara where I wanted it," and he snorted at that. "I understood the power balance. I knew where to go, who to talk to, what the lay of the land was. One bullet undid six months of my work that night. Better the asshole you know than the asshole you don't."

He stared at her through lowered eyelids, searching her face over and over for the lie. When he eventually spoke, his voice was raw. "Seems you don't have as much influence as I thought."

Vetra shrugged. She had already told Scott what she thought about 'The Charlatan's' little power play, and as far as she was concerned it was the Pathfinder's mess to clean up- but she could still pass him a broom. "If I knew what he was going to do, I would've said something."

"Yeah, well. Too late," he said, quiet. Kaetus left her without a goodbye, and the guards returned in silence when he hit the wall twice. With a sharp jab Kaetus poked Susan on the shoulder, and the girl almost dropped her rifle. "You follow me," his back to Vetra now. "And you keep an eye on her. Don't trust any shit that falls out of her mouth," he snapped at Dave. "Think you can manage that?"

Oh, how she rattled his carapace. Vetra did her best to look the model prisoner as the door closed, finally standing to stretch her sore legs. "Funny, I want to say the same thing," she said, lifting her arms until something clicked.

* * *

 **Notes:** This chapter has been written for days, but I debated posting it until I could work out the pacing issues. Unlike my Ryder, I do not wing it.

Thank you for reading, and the comments! (Turns out there's twelve of you reading this, not three.)


	8. One Day Ago: Havarl

Ryder made Jaal lead their group into Havarl's jungle; he knew every twist of vine and crumbling ruin, thanks to his childhood. This was his kingdom, not Scott's, and Scott trusted his friend enough to follow his shadow.

Cora led another expedition kilometres away, wary of the coincidence of their navpoints being so close together. "Feels like a trap," she said, frowning at the coordinates before they left. Scott shrugged; the place needed checking, if only to prove it as the waste of time. He pushed away the worry over their group, and assumed Drack would at least keep Sara out of trouble.

The weather was awful, worse than Aya. The humidity was thick enough to taste, and Scott wondered why they were doing this midday. "How you liking your P.B and J, Ryder?" said Peebee, during a breather. She was staring at the pink moon in the distance, bothered by the heat as he was.

Scott wiped the sweat dripping down his nose before he spoke, taking in a lungful of hot air. "What is it with you and acronyms?"

"We all have a thing," she replied. Jaal ran ahead, and Peebee tagged him to follow.

Jaal did not speak much. He took his leadership role seriously, making sure their group was not seen even by their allies; under his direction, they bypassed Initiative outposts, villages and Roekaar nests with ease. The route was slow thanks to his stealth, but he still made them run in the heat when they needed to.

Though Scott had asked for comm silence, the Tempest could contact them if they found something. "Hey other Ryder," Liam said. Scott did not pause to answer right away, focused as he was on matching Jaal's speed.

"Go ahead Liam," he replied, boosting over a fallen tree. He hoped the call was for a reason.

"Thought you'd want to know there's been another message from The Arsehole, this time from Kadara. Suvi traced it to a server set on a timer, though there's nothing there; it's already been checked by our guys. Your bounty has doubled, Ryder; you're officially expensive as balls."

"Always was," he replied drily. "That it?"

"Nope," and Scott could hear the pop of the 'P' in the word. "The mercs who didn't think much of the offer are curious now, Sid says. She's still checking the comms for us."

"Awesome," Scott whispered back, scanning the landscape. Jaal gestured for them to duck in the shadow of tree, waiting until a large pack of galorn moved on ahead. Though the wildlife had evolved in strange ways since the Vault's awakening, the lumbering creatures were still antagonistic during breeding season. "She manage to scrape up anything else?"

"Something about Hercules and the Charlatan, but I guess it can wait until you blow a secret base to pieces."

Jaal chuffed, annoyed enough at Liam's presumption to finally speak out. "We don't have you," he said, as quiet as Scott. "There will be no explosions."

Liam laughed once. "Yeah? Ten credits say we see the boom from here. Good luck."

The mission continued in stealth. They crept around a small encampment of Roekaar to avoid detection, hiding in the shadows of a crumbling building until they could move on. Peebee reached out to trail a finger over the ridge of a patch of wildflowers, only to be nudged away in an instant.

"Don't touch that," Jaal said, rapping her wrist. "Unless you want your flesh to balloon five times its original size, I'd advise you to leave it alone."

Peebee snorted. "Oh the possibilities," she said, hands cupping the air around her chest. "I wonder if they stay supple?"

"Your, ah, chest baggage would be filled with yellow puss, if you were insane enough to expose yourself," Jaal said, trying to keep a smirk off his face. "How attractive."

She covered her mouth, snickering quietly. "Baggage? Aaw, cute. This your attempt at banter again?"

The dull clicking in Scott's ear sounded the arrival of the other team connecting to the line. "So, does the baggage come with a matching purse?" Sara said, aware of every word they spoke; all their comms were linked, after all. "Girl's got to have some standards."

Peebee's face lit up a little too fast for Scott's liking. "Azure is always in style," she said, smiling at Sara's voice.

He shuddered at the flirting; his sister was always awful at it. "Get off the line," Scott whispered. "And go bother your own navpoint."

"We're already here, Scottie, that's why I called. You guys are slow." Scott tried not to sigh at Sara's enthusiasm; he would be too, in her position- especially after months of bench warming.

The line clicked again as another voice joined the conversation; by the slow fumbling of static, it was Drack. "Looks like we got company," he said. "Usual bunch of freelancers who don't know their ass from their elbow, but a fight's a fight- and I'm itchin' for one."

"There's a prefab ahead full of mercs," Cora added, the only one sensible enough to give an accurate report. "Standard colony housing, probably stolen. Jaal's mom says they've been here two days without permission. The navpoint Pathfinder Rix leads us right to it."

Scott flinched as Drack bellowed in his ear. "Heh! Shit, you ain't your brother!" They could hear a faint _no no no_ in the background, a frantic Cora trying to catch up with both. He was well aware of Sara's tendency to charge in fists first, biotics flaring; her team would soon learn to cover.

"Try not to get yourself killed," he said. "Maintain radio silence until clear. Over."

After ten minutes of another run that made his undersuit soak in sweat, Jaal gestured for Scott to stop. The pair crouched by a cover of purple foliage while Peebee watched their backs, intent on the entrance of a small camp a hundred metres away.

"Our goal lies over that wall," Jaal said, a brow raised at the security. He had hunkered down onto his belly, checking their navpoint through his scrolling visor.

"Good job," Scott said. "I'll take over now." He thought he saw relief in Jaal's eyes at the leadership baton pass, and patted his shoulder.

"We will remain undetected only for a short while," Jaal said, looking at the scrolling text over his eye. "We must move on. My Mothers' tells me they have increased guard duty to this particular base, which is enough to arouse suspicion. They suspect it to be a laboratory of some sort, evidence of chemicals have been delivered here."

Scott shifted by him, hefting his heavy rifle into a better hold. "It does seem well guarded for such a small camp," he said, looking through his scope. "Should be easy, though." Scott zoomed into the base, noticing a satellite dish stuck to a tower; a plan soon clicked into place. "We got ten credits to collect from Liam. I'll give the signal when I'm ready."

Jaal nodded once. "They will not hesitate, but neither will we," and bumped his shoulder with Scott's in approval. "Good luck, my friend."

"Peebee, you get the patrol when it comes," he said, activating his stealth grid. Thankful for Gil doing something to his jump jets to silence them, Scott boosted himself up and over the spiked fence, barely free of the tripwire. There was only one guard on the tower; two leaned against the fence behind it, and Scott could see they were bored enough to stare into space.

With four seconds left of his cloak, he managed to reach the tower's second floor. A silenced shot brought down its only occupant; Scott interfaced SAM into the enemy's radio frequency as soon as his hands were free.

"The tripwires have been activated along the perimeter," he heard on their line. Scott cursed to himself- surely he was careful, he had cleared the wall.

"Are you safe?" Jaal whispered, quiet in their private channel. He had made his own way to the camp undetected, was was waiting for his signal.

"It's from the north side," came the radioed reply from another guard, a Voeld accent. Nowhere near them, they had entered the camp through the east. "Probably the frumfrav again, they chew the wires. The engineers keep on finding burning puffballs whenever they go to fix the generator, it's hilarious- I have vids."

"Wasn't me," Peebee said. Scott risked a peek over the lip of his perch to see her a place a glittering needle in a thick Angaran neck; the other guard friend fumbled for his weapon too late, and Scott got him with a clean rifle shot.

The nannites in the needle were nasty things already, but with Peebee's melding of Remtech, they were outright murderous. "Always takes a war to improve technology," she had said, pinching a tiny vial in her fingers to show him once. "I'm sure this could be used for something other than violence, but for now we're sticking with death choking nannites, or as I like to call them: T.A. - Tiny Angry VIs,"she told him, so very proud of the silly misnomer.

You had to get up close to inject the serum, but once you did they were designed to target respiratory systems, infesting lungs with a foam and pinching off oxygen vessels. Even Drack -always grumpy about new toys- grunted his approval at the recent results in Elaaden, amused at the results. "Softens them up for me," he said, casually punting a gasping Kett 'test subject' so hard it managed to skip the sands.

Most of them had a morbid streak of humour, but they at least stopped short at playing golf with the heads of their enemies; didn't stop them from thinking about it, though. "Bet you can't do that again old man," Vetra had told him, shielding her eyes from the endless sun. Scott remembered looking at her at the time and thinking how pretty she was, even with Kett blood drying on her armour; he smiled at the memory, but her absence soon stabbed him in the gut as a reminder.

Not now, he thought. He checked his scope again, shoving his anxiety down with a couple of deep breaths, something catching his senses as he did. Was it his imagination, or could he smell roasting meat somewhere?

 _-I suggest heading towards the laboratory below you, Pathfinder. It is the only building connected to the power grid, and would be the only viable place for a terminal._

"We can use the alarm as a distraction," he told them. "SAM says there's a terminal to your nine, Peebs."

"Kinda busy," she said. A flash of blue and a guard went sailing over the the wall, glowing in biotics.

He looked through his scope again, planning his route to the lab. A large group of Roekaar huddled outside the main door as the alarm sounded again, and Scott chewed his lip. They had no choice but to cut through them, but as he saw four guards surround another, he zoomed in, curious.

The cornered guard -a woman, he realised- raised her hands in submission; as soon as they made a grab for her she became a blur. Scott blinked twice as a large flash of light went off, the EMP dazing his sight through the scope. Two guards were down in an eye blink, and three shots later four were dead. "Well, shit," he whispered, watching the woman fight.

"Pathfinder?" Jaal was curious by the noise. "I assume you have a plan." Scott didn't answer right away, enthralled as the woman took down the last of her victims. She somehow knew where he was, watching from his perch; Scott almost dropped his rifle as she snapped her head up towards him and winked.

The crosshair was right between her eyes; he could take the shot, if he wanted. "We have company," Scott said softly. "Angaran, female. She's killed five hostiles by herself. Probably tripped the alarm." She disappeared from his line of sight then, and Scott used his bullet on a Roekaar guard instead. "She knows we're here."

"Nice," Peebee said. "Does she want to make friends?"

"Jaal?" Scott asked him. Jaal was too busy to notice, drawing his blade through another Roekaar to pay attention.

"I know of no active Resistance missions in this area," he replied after he was done, dragging the gurgling body behind a crate. "I suggest caution."

A loud, shattering boom filled the encampment. The laboratory they were aiming for shot up in flames, breaking the glass of the huts surrounding it. "Don't think she's in the mood to talk," Scott said, ducking down until the dust settled.

Clinking safety doors pulled themselves down the walls of the burning building, cutting off the smoke and the noise in seconds. Peebee stood up from her cover, hands on hips. "So much for the stealth."

"Ten credits," Scott heard Liam say over the comms, after his ears had stopped ringing. "Told you."

"Wasn't me," Scott replied. "Doesn't count. Someone set fire to my hacking point," and leapt from the tower towards the flames, slowing down his fall with a jet jump. "Jaal, Peebee- mop up the rest outside, the lab is mine."

Most of the explosion had been contained within the safety doors, though the laboratory was still burning. The entrance opened to reveal another room to the side and, to Scott's relief, a lone terminal, safe from the fire; between him and it were six guards, clearly defending an unarmoured Angaran cowering by his desk.

"Die, _vesegara_!" Said one, and Scott ducked as his shield took the brunt of the bullets.

He wasn't alone in the fight. He punched one guard in the throat as he scrambled behind the doorway, waiting for his cloak to charge. Scott managed a shot into the head of another; as more bullets sailed over his cover, he realised his mystery woman was picking off his targets from her position.

"I suggest you do not open the laboratory," she said, appearing behind him in a shimmer of her own cloak. She tapped the thick double doors of the burning lab beside them, sealed tight. "Unless you court death."

Scott shrugged and shot another guard, amused. Seems they had a truce, for now. "I have a certain reputation."

Only one guard remained; Scott dealt with it in a snap of his omni-blade, watching as she leaped over the bodies to her last target- the unarmoured Angaran, who made no effort to fight back.

The man was was terrified. "Whatever I offer is yours," he said, begging for his life. "Stars above, I was forced to-"

Her momentum had pushed him against his desk. "No deal," she whispered. Theirs was a macabre version of an embrace, her thighs between his; it was only when he heard the gurgle Scott realised a dagger was between the man's ribs, his head collapsed on her shoulder.

"I should thank you for the distraction," the assassin said, yanking out her blade as she moved away; the corpse folded to the floor in an inelegant slump, eyes still open.

A flick of her dagger splattered blue blood on the wall; she used a corner of her victim's rofjinn to wipe away the rest. "Interesting," Scott said, his gun trained at her. "That was my line. Why all the fire? We could've done without the mess."

"If you say," she replied, smiling at him. "Are we friends?"

Scott snorted at the question. "Who are you?"

She cocked her head. "You're here for something too, yes? I could help."

Peebee had joined them silently, curious at the scene; Scott smirked as her pistol remained drawn, pleased at the caution. "Did I miss the party?" she said. Her head tilted at the assassin standing there, and Peebee's eyes roamed the woman's curves shamelessly. "I'm fashionably late."

Scott snorted. "Least she didn't jump you. That's her version of a handshake," he told the stranger.

The pair of them watched as she flipped her dagger idly: Scott watched it trail in her hands, a twitching finger near his trigger; Peebee's skin rippled bright blue, waiting for the throw. "I can still jump," she said, waiting for the signal.

Jaal spoke through their commline, breaking the tension. "Ryder?"

His gun drooped slightly; perhaps Jaal would know this woman. "Go ahead."

"All clear for now, but not for long- they know we are here." Jaal said, his voice muffled. "There are cages of galorn outside the lab, and an incinerator full of their bones. I do not know what experiments they were doing here, but they did not die cleanly. I put one out of its misery, it was-" Jaal cleared his throat, emotion caught. "Angara do not take kindly to such… experiments. We are not Kett."

Peebee risked a look behind the safety doors, where flames licked the walls. "I can take a guess what they were doing," she told him. "You're not going to like it."

"But you shall tell me," he replied. "See you soon."

"We have a guest," said Scott. "And a terminal still to hack." He gestured for Peebee to watch the stranger while he tried to switch it on; as it failed to boot, he spoke out loud before SAM could tell them the problem. "No juice here, Jaal. Can you find a plug and stick it back in?"

His friend paused at the mangled idioms, but got the gist. "There's always a generator somewhere," came the reply. "On it."

Ignoring her was enough to keep her talking. "You never did answer my question," said their captive, watching them over their guns. "We are friends, yes?"

Scott cocked his head, drumming his fingers on the terminal. "Depends. Are you Resistance?"

The assassin held up a mocking clenched fist. "I remain Strong and Clear," she replied. "And such a good girl, waiting for you to release me."

The lights of the room flicked on; Jaal had found the generator. "Aha! Wild frumfrav," he said, pleased. "They're nesting- I shall take pictures for Vetra." the lights dipped to a crack of electricity; Scott was convinced he could hear a frenzied squeak through his ear piece. "Or perhaps not."

The assassin could not keep quiet for long, watching them both as she sat meekly on the table. "What are you going to do with that gun?" She asked.

"Not sure yet," he said, interfacing SAM one handed into the system. "Got any ideas?"

"Always," answered Peebee, jerking hers.

 _-Searching the database. This will take time, please do not move from the area until the download is complete._

A sharp pair of blue eyes looked at them from the shadows of the door, watching them. "Stop skulking, Jaal," said their captive, annoyed at the hostility. "I am bored of this."

Of course Jaal would know who she was. "I assumed -wishful thinking, I suppose- that no one I know would be stupid enough to cross the Pathfinder," he said. "Yet here we all are. Is this your nonsense, Aksuka?"

She crossed her arms. "Oh, stop it," she replied, gesturing to the corpse on the floor with a firm nod. "This is what I do."

His was mouth set in a grim line, refusing to greet her. "Ryder, this is Aksuka, an Ama Darav; she is my sibling. And should not be meddling with our mission," he said in her direction. "Aksuka, Ryder is _tavetaan_ \- you understand this. Our Mothers assured me you know."

He walked closer, his rifle holstered; Jaal's hand pushed down Peebee's pistol as he went, intent only on his sister. "I see you went to the same charm school as Jaal," Peebee said, shouldering her gun with an eye roll. "Good job I know you know your mom's awesome, otherwise I'd assume all Ama Daravs are grumps."

Scott remained on edge, watching the siblings. "Has protocol changed since we left Aya? Do you ignore our Mothers' wisdom?" Jaal said, angry now. "This is a mess, Aksuka. Why weren't we told you were coming? We could have worked together."

Aksuka dismissed his posturing with a smugness only an older sibling could inflict. "Oh, stop it. Don't sulk." She hugged Jaal with both arms, embracing him with a smile. "You don't know everything," she replied, pinching his chin. A smear of blood remained there, branding him blue. "Nor is it your business to."

"Yeah? You made it my business by interfering," Scott replied, looking up from his omni-tool. Why were they kept in the dark? They had left Aya on good terms, or so he thought. "You almost destroyed what we came for."

"There was no intended harm. Our journeys merely aligned for the moment," she said, nodding her head. "I got what I wanted," and she gestured to the corpse behind her. "You're getting what you want, and a particularly thorny Roekaar nest has been dealt with. We can all leave satisfied."

- _It is of interest to note that several sections of the database have been wiped clean, Pathfinder, within minutes of our arrival_. SAM spoke in their private channel, away from Aksuka's ears. Ryder startled at the reveal. _-However, I can still access the data required to trace the message Kaetus Vexen had sent, and complete my initial search._

Why did Aksuka delete the Roekaar data, or was it the Roekaar themselves? What didn't they want him to see? "Satisfied? No," Scott told her, smiling at the deception. "Not even in the same system. Try again."

"Hmm, I wonder why I'm really here, then," she said. "Do you think I'm here to vie for your tempting bounty? Intriguing, isn't it?"

A long suffering sigh from Jaal blew past her ear, annoyed at the drama. "Aksuka."

She returned her brother's ire with an eye roll. "Please, like I would bother touching your precious Pathfinder. Mother would kill me herself." The woman jumped down from the desk in a fluid motion and holstered her blade. "Are you involved in Operation: Yevera Song, Ryder? I will tell you everything, of course. Are you?"

The fire had died out in the lab behind them, finally starved of oxygen. Scott exhaled, releasing the tension he held. "Of course. Obviously," he said, lying. "Who isn't?"

"Hmm, nice try," Aksuka replied, smiling at him. "I suggest you go to Evfra, if you want a seat at the table." Aksuka said, ignoring the gun pointed at her still. She almost made it free, if it wasn't for Jaal's darting hand on her shoulder. "You concerned for my safety, dear one?" She said, patting it. "Don't tell our Mothers I'm here. They'll only fuss."

Scott had reached his limit. He understood that the Angarans would always hold their secrets, but when their espionage bled into his work, that was the point where he would snap; he lifted his pistol again. "Who told you you could leave? You owe me."

"Scott," Jaal replied, voice dangerously low. "Don't."

"Why did you delete everything?" Scott jabbed at the monitor's keyboards, scrolling through the messages; he ignored Jaal's request.

"I didn't. I used a scalpel, not a shotgun," she said, removing Jaal's hand with a shrug. "I took only what was required. Nothing important to bother yourself over."

 _-Thirty seconds left on the download. Would you like me to try and recover the deleted data, Pathfinder? This will take longer_.

It was said out loud. Peebee raised her brows, wide eyed at the implication. "Do it," he said, staring at Aksuka; she had one hand on her weapon still, but so did he.

"That was unwise," Aksuka said, lifting her chin. "You should trust us, Ryder. This will not end well."

After what felt like an age, Scott holstered his pistol with so much force the magnetic strap splintered. Of course he couldn't shoot Aksuka; what a personal shit storm that would be. He couldn't even bring himself to look at her, angry at the politics she had cornered him into.

Instead he forced himself to focus on his omni-tool. "Go do your Resistance bullshit," he told her, eyes scanning the data. "This isn't over."

Aksuka left them in an eye blink under the stealth of her cloak, and Peebee whistled. "Fun," she said, in a tone that meant the opposite. "Spy nonsense is above my pay grade- if you ever get around to giving me one, anyway," and amused herself with reading a discarded datapad.

It became apparent to Scott that Jaal was as much in the dark as he was. It seemed his association with the Pathfinder had frayed his connection to the Resistance, and Scott watched with a frown as his friend went to examine the corpse by the table, blue eyes round in confusion. "Did you know him?"

Jaal turned the corpse with gentle hands. "Only from a distance. This was Bajenko Pa Vem," he said. "A biochemist who specialised in plant life, if I remember right. He worked under the Moshae for a time; Bajenko was a good man, I don't understand why he is here."

"You sister killed him- we don't know why either," Scott said, looking up from the compiling data. "Would Efvra order his death?"

Jaal nodded. "He would know our secrets. Bajenko was developing a hydroponic system in Aya, as I remember; had access to tiers of security that would make the city vulnerable. I can speak with Efvra to confirm."

"I can tell you something for nothing," Peebee said, "That lab that got firebombed? Serious equipment in there." She jerked her thumb to the charred doors, grateful for the seal. "I don't know exactly what they were working on, but it's not hydroponics; if you were desperate for an answer, I'm going to guess at bombs, nasty ones- no one has BZ lying around for kicks. Be glad there's heavy doors separating us."

"BZ?" Jaal asked.

"Short for Benzilate," Peebee said, throwing away the datapad. "Chemical used in warfare, been banned in Council space for centuries back in the Milky Way. Does creepy things to levo systems."

 _-Searching complete. I could not salvage all the data, but found enough repetition to warrant a codename_ : _shenama._

"It means 'dry mouth' in Shelesh," Jaal said, curious. "Can be used to describe a certain nervousness. A strange word for a code."

In the grand scheme of things, Scott's patience for Angaran espionage was wearing thin; he had more important things to worry about. "I don't really give a shit," he said to the AI. "Do you have a navpoint for Kaetus now?"

 _-Yes, Pathfinder. It appears all the messages were send from within the Erikkson system. I have narrowed it down to a six point seven A.U radius, and have send the coordinates back to the Tempest._

"We should-"

Peebee was cut off as an EMP was thrown into the room, a favoured Roekaar toy. It was less disruptive than the one Aksuka had used, but still strong enough to blast their shields to nothing.

Stupid, he thought. Careless of them to stand around holding their dicks for so long, knowing more enemies would be coming.

"Scott you there?" Cora spoke through the commline. A pause as she heard his Widow fire off. "You good?"

"All good," he said, reloading his rifle. "You three still alive?" Scott gestured for them to follow, heading out towards the camp's entrance in a blur of his cloak. It gave them room to fight, away from the lab full of strange chemicals.

Cora exhaled before she spoke again. "Barely. We found something."

The name was on the tip of his tongue before he could stop himself. "Vetra?"

"No, but-" she sighed again. "They left us her tooth and her visor to find in one of the huts, with a bomb attached. I managed to shield us from most of it, but Sara and Drack have a few minor burns."

"Shit tickled," Drack added. "Your sister is fine."

"There's something else," said Cora. Scott breathed in, lining up another clean shot. A trigger squeeze and it was gone, moving to find a safer place to listen. "Kaetus spoke to us, but refused to talk about anything," she said, concerned. "He only wants you for negotiations. Kallo is picking you up," and his wrist pinged with the coordinates of the closest forwarding point. "You have nine minutes to reach the holo comm of the Tempest, omni-tool won't cut it. We think SAM can trace him, but you have to answer it first."

"Coming in hot," Kallo confirmed. "Hurry, several hostiles in the area- stealth is not an option."

"Keep him talking when he's on the line," Suvi said, intercepting their conversation. "Between us, we might be able to find the signal source."

He saw as Jaal held up his fist for the all clear. As soon as Peebee followed after with hers, Scott slung his weapon around and bolted, leaping over the fence with a boost of his jets. "On it," he said, sprinting to race time.

"Are you all free of the lab, Scott Ryder?" Aksuka purred in his ear as he ran, and he threw a look of annoyance Jaal's way. "Hello again."

"Aksuka," Jaal replied, anger evident even in his breathlessness. "Get off the line."

She was only amused. "I will, if someone answers my question."

"We're free," Scott said, sliding down a hill in a stumble. Roekaar were taking pot shots behind them now, his shields glancing the blows.

"Then this is goodbye," she replied. Another explosion fired behind them, louder than the first; the base they had raided was now a pillar of smoke and flame. "I would not go back there, if I were you."

"No shit," Peebee replied, coughing; the air was oily, and even in the damp humidity of Havarl, the smoke had reached them. "What about the chemicals? That gunk has got to have a half-life."

Scott gritted his teeth and ran faster, aware he had barely minutes to reach the ship, much less take a call; he almost growled in relief at seeing it descent onto a slope in front of them.

Protocol on the Tempest meant he had to be decontaminated before he could leave the docking bay. Both Cora and Gil stripped him of his armour as fast has they could, Liam relieving him of his weapons. With a minute left he answered the call as soon as it came, standing in front of a holo screen in only his undersuit.

"Ryder," Kaetus said, amused at the haste. "You made it. Good for you."

He stared at the flickering holo of the man who had made his life hell, too angry to think straight. "What do you want?"

"The million credit question," he said. "You worked it out?"

Scott wiped the sweat from his lip, annoyed at how parched his throat was. "The bounty?"

Kaetus laughed, crossing his arms. "Shit, you're actually stupid," he said, chuckling still. "Really. This is the might of the Initiative? The great Pathfinder, struck dumb again."

This wasn't going to plan. Scott put his hands on his waist and exhaled, trying and failing to bite down his anger. "Where's Vetra?"

"You're not in a position to make demands." Kaetus tilted his head, and Scott knew enough about Turians to see he was tired, the skin around his eyes almost hooding his gaze. "The bounty's a crapshoot," he said. "Though if anyone kills you, a bonus. No, this was never about you, not really; but I won't lie about it not being fun."

"Keep talking, asshole- be shoving those words up your ass real soon," Scott said, leaning against the table. It was not an empty threat.

"What, so you can trace the call? It's no matter if you do, we're gone as soon as it's over." Kaetus inclined his head behind him. "She's here, and still alive. So I'm going to give you a choice," he said. "Three locations. One will have your pet smuggler, the remaining two have level fours primed and ready to go; the Alliance called them Blue Silvers, if I recall right."

It was Scott's turn to smile. Blue Silver was a terrorist threat alert, an old Skyillian Blitz code. "This again? What was it Bradley called your previous attempt? A joke, that's it. Pathfinder Raeka called them a waste of time."

"You saw what I wanted you to," Kaetus said quietly. "You have an hour to decide."

Before he could close the line, Scott spoke out. "I don't know if she's alive," he said. "Show me."

Kaetus held his hand over the call button, debating if he should end it. "You," he said to someone off screen. "Put the bottle down and get me the smuggler. Bind her mouth."

"She's unconscious," he barely heard the reply, a female _something_ mumbling from the speakers. "The Salarian's been. Says she'll sleep for two hours at least."

Kaetus grunted once. "Fine." With a few clicks of omni-tool, the feed was closed, but Scott could hear armoured footfalls. A poorer quality video lit up after, focusing on the prone form of Vetra locked in her cell, covered in a filthy blanket; her eyelids flickered, a hand twitched restlessly against her chest. It was not a restful sleep, he knew what restful was to her; Scott clenched his fists, biting the urge to vent his frustration against the comm panel.

"Been keeping her quiet with Oblivion and sleep meds," he said, showing the camera through the glass window of her cell. Scott could see Kaetus's distorted reflection, flanked by two guards. "You familiar with Oblivion? She's got enough in her system to go into withdrawals now; she'll need a regular dose to function before the shakes kick in. You have fifty five minutes until contact."

The room went dark when the line switched off. "Did you get it," he said. His stomach fell through his feet; he wanted to throw up what little he had eaten, but couldn't. The crew crept around him now, unsure what to say.

"We've traced it," Suvi confirmed. "It's in the Erikkson system somewhere." Another coincidence, of course it was. "APEX can reach there faster than us, if you want me to contact-"

"No," he said, cutting her off. "Kallo, how long?"

"Five and a half hours, Pathfinder," Kallo answered. "Priming FTL now."

"Woah now, as simple as that?" Liam said. "Blue Silver is _bad_ , Ryder- chemical warfare bad. We do not walk away from them, even if they turn out to be jokes. Because otherwise? That is some mass destructive levels of fuckery. We have to do something to stop him."

They all looked at Liam; most thought it, but he was the one angry enough to voice the dissent first. "Even still, we don't know where he means," Cora replied, hands behind her back. "He's hit Eos and Elaadan so far, but they were dealt with. A suspicious package was found in the docking bay of the Nexus this morning- it amounted to nothing, too badly wired to go off."

"You think this is related to the stuff we saw in the Roekaar lab?" Peebee coughed again, paranoid. "Hopefully my lungs aren't melting." She flinched when Lexi scanned her with her omni tool, waving away the intrusion.

"Defeat in detail," Drack said. It was a such an odd statement for the old mercenary to make that they all looked at him, confused by the meaning.

"What detail?" Liam asked, waving his hands for him to explain.

Drack's green eyes focused on the floor before he looked up. "Back when Nakmor was new, we had this dipshit recruit. He left his old clan to join ours, something over the ryncol being better. Anyway, he was quiet and we all ignored him; he got into a few fights, sure, but not enough for anyone to really take notice. He started to make friends- the women said he was good for something, my _krantt_ said he was attentive. Took awhile to realise he was playing us; he would start shit between a couple of idiots and conveniently not be around when it all kicked off."

Scott had stopped listening halfway, staring at flexing knuckles. Time was slipping away, after all. "Do you have a point, Drack?"

"Turns out he was sent by the Weyrloc Clan to break us down from the inside, that's the point."

Jaal growled, clearing his throat before he spoke. "A saboteur," he said. "A common Roekaar tactic."

Drack shifted on his feet, rolling his arm as his joints bothered him again. "He didn't want us together, so we sent him back to Weyrloc missing his throat. It's the same quadless shit the Turian is doing -only interested in pissing in the waterhole, you won't see him face to face in a fight- not that he's worth bothering my gun over. Waste of my ammo, if you ask me."

Divide and conquer. Defeat in the detail. Scott shook his head, understanding the tactic. But why did Vetra have to be in the middle of it all? "See, I think that discord might be the plan, but not the cause. I think this is all very much about the Pathfinder still," Sara said, crossing her arms. "He lied to you- Turians can do that, you know. They are capable."

"Ain't that the truth," Drack replied, voice low.

"Kaetus might say it doesn't concern you, but he still hates you over what happened in Kadara. I read the report," Sara said, standing closer to him now. "Sloane was important to him."

"Understatement there about old Sloaney," Peebee snorted. "No one was allowed to touch her Turian, and he felt the same for her."

Sara leaned against the comm panel, looking up at her brother. "I don't think he gives a shit about the Resistance or the Nexus, he wants you to suffer slowly. She poked his chest gently, resisting the urge to shake him. "Making you chose Vetra over hundreds of people is what he wants, because Kaetus knows what the fallout will be."

He realised he was staring at the space where holoscreen usually was, as if somehow Kaetus would appear again to taunt him. "Kallo, head back to orbit," Scott said. They had time until he would call again, enough to formulate a plan. "Someone get me Director Tann on the line. The Resistance too, if they'll listen. And Charlatan's mouthpiece needs to know."

Scott hoped Vetra would forgive him, no matter what he chose.

* * *

 **Notes:**

Soon the Vetra and Scott chapters will be in the same time frame, how exciting! Next update won't take as long, I promise.

Angaran/Shelesh translation:

 _Galorn:_ placid mushroom cat cows from Havarl. They glow!

 _Frumfrav:_ small timid mammals that puff themselves up to appear bigger. Jaal thinks Vetra's fondness for guns is like a frumfrav, and teases her about it.

 _Tavetaan_ : a friend/person loyal to a family. You trust them with your life. Similar to _krantt_ , a Krogan word for a warrior's most trusted allies, which Drack uses in this chapter.


	9. Present Day IV

Kaetus had left Vetra alone with only one Turian guard, much to her glee. Even though whatever drugs in her system had softened her reactions, Vetra knew she had one more attempt at talking her way out of incarceration- even if it killed her.

At first she tried to reach out casually; no matter what subject she tried -the food, news in Kadara, even another 'joking' threat to release her before Ryder unleashed merry hell on his head- nothing would work. Dave took his leader's parting words of not 'trusting any shit she says' to heart, refusing to listen to her with such a staunch showing of loyalty to Kaetus that she almost hummed the Turian national anthem at him.

She shrugged and rose from her nest of blankets, knowing he would crack soon. It amused her to see him stand up straight as she began to exercise her weak limbs, as if she could somehow get to him through steel. Vetra knew he was looking at her waist as she moved, and lifted her arms again to flex side to side.

"Not in the talking mood, huh?" She asked him. Dave sighed and stared at the floor; there it was, the levee was breaking. Vetra hid her glee with a yoga bend Lexi had taught her, gripping her toes just so into the floor. "I'm sure Kaetus doesn't mind us talking."

"Look, you already pissed him off," he said, worn down enough to speak. "Save it. You don't have to deal with the bitching, we do. Things are behind as it is."

That was an interesting information drop, but she ignored it to focus on him. "We?" She asked, thinking of Susan. "You think he's taking your friend out for a little stress relief?" Dave startled at the words. "She seems the type, and Kaetus, well…"

He chuffed, amused at the attempt at gossip. "Takes one xenofreak to know another, does it?" Vetra chuckled, stretching out her other side of her unused muscles. His eyes swept her curves again and she smiled, a fake appreciation for his leering. _Take a picture, asshole_ , she thought. _It'll last longer._

 _"_ There's a club. We all have a secret handshake."

He rolled his eyes. "Well, I ain't signing up any time soon. Ain't in the habit of botherin' folks over who they fuck, either," he replied.

"Good for you, Dave. That's the spirit." Vetra reached for her last ration bar, hands on her hips. Time to get to what she was good at. "What's your real name, anyway?"

The rifle in his hand drooped; Dave rolled his shoulders once to correct his hold again. He was armed with an Elkoss number Vetra recognised as part of a job lot she got hold of for the Initiative literal light years ago. They were kept only for emergencies, due to their tendency to overheat; seems like the Outcasts still had friends back on the Nexus somewhere.

"You're going to die soon," he replied, shrugging. It was a Human gesture, one so very easily picked up by other races. Funny how they all ended up influencing the other, and Vetra wondered how much of her had rubbed off on the Tempest crew. "Why bother with this?"

Fury bubbled under her skin, but she forced another smile on her face. "Because it separates us from the Kett."

Another put upon sigh gusted out, this time rooted in guilt. "Name's Mavius. And I worked as a bodyguard under Vemtek Security back on the Citadel, before you ask; I came to Andromeda because I believed in the crap they fed us. Happy now?" It was the usual getting to know you standard in Heleus: your name, what you did, why did you come. All of it answered in one long, suffering breath.

To Vetra, it helped to focus on the similarities when bartering, to find something even in a grubbing scumbag to like. "I hear you. One hell of a pitch, huh? They got me too. Even forced my little sister to come, figured we'd get a fresh start."

 _Come on, Mavius. Mention a name, family, something_. Vetra blinked slowly at his face, waiting for him to reply. "My wife said we should go," he said. At his admission, she silently fist pumped in the confines of her thoughts. "She said we had a better chance of promotion here, same as you."

"Where is she?" She asked, leaning against the window to eat her the last of her rations. "Did she make it?"

Mavius shifted again, avoiding her gaze. "I don't know. I woke up alone, since a bunch of Angaran pirates were hacking my pod for salvage. Me frozen in it was an unfortunate side effect, who knew? First Contact went as well as expected, but I still decked the bastards."

That was impressive, if it was the truth. Vetra trilled her reaction. "Nice."

He chuckled. "Yeah, well. Still ended up the wrong side of the Initiative, but-"

"You do what you do. I got lucky," she said. "I wonder sometimes where I would be if things were different, if I didn't know Nakmor Kesh; I might even be on the other side of the glass." Mavius clenched his mandibles and looked away, and Vetra tried a different tact. "I meant it, you know." She lowered her subvocals just so, gentle and soothing. "Earlier, I mean."

Mavius narrowed his eyes at her. "Meant what?"

"I can find people like your wife, even get them out of cryo. Can give you piece of mind, if all else fails. I won't promise she's alive, but I can promise you I know where she ends up. I have access to everything on the Nexus, and the Ark Natanus is at my talons. I can get every scrap of information, every person and pod that goes through that station. You must know that."

He swallowed audibly, looking at the door- just in case somehow Kaetus would storm back in to shut them up. "There's an information broker I found, says he can find her, but-"

"Salarian? Green skin? Missing some front teeth?" Mavius nodded once. "He knows shit," Vetra hissed. "Believe me. He's good for his corner of Kadara, but that's all. How much have you paid him so far?"

It was the wrong tone to take; Vetra cursed to herself for getting too pushy, aware of the sudden heat in his gaze. "Fuck you, Nyx."

It took every bit of her resolve to drop the subject, waiting now until he cracked. "It's still there, my offer," she said, keeping her features neutral.

Mavius snorted, then held his gun higher. She waited for him to connect the dots, leaning against the wall still.

Vetra had counted to five hundred and four in her head before he spoke again. "If we do this," he said, " _If_ , we need to do it soon. Before the Boss comes back from the quarry." Quarry? Interesting slip, but she pushed it to one side again. "There's a terminal in the office, I don't know if it's connected to anything you need, but I seen him use it for calls outside."

She lifted her hands out and stretched again; Vetra wasn't stupid enough to let her guard down, but at least he had taken the bait. "Worth a shot," she said, watching him as he opened the door with a snap of his omni-tool. His rifle was pushed into her face as soon as he entered her cell- she knew it wouldn't take much to overpower him, but wondered what his play would be.

"It'll be easier if I had my 'tool and my visor," she said, ignoring the weapon.

He looked at her like she was stupid; the gun was still there. "No."

"Trust works both ways," she said, looking around the muzzle. "You want something, I want something. But you have to help me out, Mavius. It's not like I can just log into the Nexus from here, I need my tools." Vetra moved the tip of rifle with one talon to one side, making a point to ignore it.

Neither of them made an effort to move. "Even if I could, they ain't here."

What she wanted was access to her files and her programs; of course she could do without them, especially if the terminal had access to even a raider established satellite network. But to Vetra, her own private server was every bit a part of her arsenal as her overclocked armour was. She felt blind without her visor, even if she had perfect vision.

Mavius looked her up and down, head cocked to one side. Vetra could see the moment he tensed up that she was getting her way and they were out of here, that she had a chance. "We should go," he said, finger to one ear. He had a comm implant, then; she could steal that. "Now's our chance."

It seemed they were the only ones in the building; the room that held her was connected to a corridor, a bolt on to a set of prefabs roughly thrown together. The landscape outside the window was dead and alien, a tangle of dried out trees illuminated by lightning strikes. She would've looked more, but a firm hand under her arm decided she had seen enough.

The rest of the darkened prefab was filled with unmarked boxes. He opened another connecting door by a haphazard stack and gestured for her to get in, rifle in hand. "There, at the back. Boss used it for something, I assume it works."

It didn't look promising. Coils of fraying wires and omni-gelled sections stuck out of it; a roll of duct tape sat on the top of the monitor, half used. Amazed it somehow booted up despite it all, Vetra started to scroll through the last used files, until she felt the cold metal of his rifle below her crest.

She didn't even attempt to hide the sarcasm this time. "You know, I work better without a gun to my head. Just FYI."

"You do this, then back in your cell," Mavius replied. "That's all you're getting."

Vetra snorted once. "You haven't thought this through, have you?"

The hold on his gun wavered. Apparently not. "You're dead soon," he said. "Think of it as an act of charity before you go."

That she was still alive meant she was needed by Kaetus for something, and Vetra did not intend to stick around to find out what. "So if you shoot me because I refuse, what does your boss do to you?"

There it was, the fault in his plan. Mavius started to pace, sub-vocals etched in nerves. "Do it," he said. "Find her. Her name's Palitia Stratis, we lived on the Citadel, she was born on Taetrus. You do this, and then you go back to your hole. That's the deal, Nyx. You're in no position for anything other than what I tell you to do."

"Well, since you're holding the gun," she said, as dry as Elaaden. "Give me a moment, I can't exactly log in with my normal I.D if you want secrecy." She could, however, log in with a dormant alias, and deliberately trigger alarms she knew Sid would be watching. Vetra understood that somehow her baby sister would be involved, and it pained her to put her in danger.

Did she really want to do this? Sid promised her she wouldn't be on the field anymore, but even listening to things she shouldn't came with a risk. Vetra had no choice, is what it came down to; it took precisely four clicks to set off the silent alarm, and she smiled when an 'Obsidian Engineering, Nexus Division' window popped up on screen. _Do You Wish To Confirm Your Passcode, Y/N?_

 _Sid Smells Weird,_ Vetra typed into the box, aware the results would be obscured to Mavius. All he could see was a database collection of dummy names and placeholders, and whatever Vetra typed would be scrambled into relatively tame search functions on screen.

Mavius squinted at the scrolling words, puzzled; Vetra slowed down and made a show of searching through names. "This is going to take a while, I don't have my usual access codes," she said, typing fast. "But I have a workaround."

 _Come on Sid, pick up. Stuck with a bunch of assholes in the middle of nowhere, one step away from escape._ Mavius went to check on the door, finally giving her some breathing room.

'Obsidian Engineering Network' popped up in another text box. Please Confirm Correct Information. You need help with: _Idio. T. Bigsis._ Is this correct? Y/N?

 _So subtle,_ Vetra replied. _No really. Awesome codename btw, would totally use it for missions._

Please Confirm Correct Information. You need help with: _F.U cku IwassoWORRIED. YourTinyhuman_isgoingtoEXPLODE._ Is this correct? Y/N?

She stopped and looked over her shoulder briefly, watching as he paced behind her. "You done?" Macius asked, watching her pause.

 _Be quiet and give me three, Sid. 3_

"Almost." Vetra made an effort to actually find his wife this time; it took her all of two minutes, once she connected to the Colonial Affairs extranet under an alias. "Come over here and check something, there's three matching her name. Can you remember her Ark number?"

He was an idiot, but not that much of an idiot, and rolled his eyes. "Probably same as mine, he said. "Send what you have to my omni-tool."

"No can do," she lied. "Unless you want evidence trailing to you."

Reluctantly he made his way towards the monitor, and Vetra leaned towards him. "You know, you made this easy for me," she said, watching as he scrolled the through the files. She aimed a kick to his spurs and Mavius stumbled face forward; in an instant she yanked his gun into her hold, pleased at the lack of strap.

"That was stupid," he said, fumbling towards her. Vetra managed to pivot just enough to swing the end of the rifle into his temple, watching the plates of his face flake on impact. Another tap even with even with all weight behind it couldn't knock him unconscious; it never did, the action vids always lied.

He fought back, of course he would. She was quick enough to dodge his fists, but not smart enough to miss a sucker punch. As her ears rang, Vetra managed to sweep her leg under his to floor him; another rifle butt kept him down, blood splattering the floor.

"I would've kept my end of the deal," she told him. He struggled standing; she knew how he felt, the drugs in her system weren't going anywhere. "This could've gone so much smoother. I would've found your wife, kept her safe. Even give her a fresh start on a colony somewhere with a nice new name, maybe even given you one too if you weren't such an asshole about it."

"F-fuc-" he tried to say, and she knew what he was going for. The monitor scrolled text frantically as she glanced at it, Sid too impatient to wait. So much for Vetra's three.

"I can still find her, and tell her what a piece of shit you are," she said, crouching down to Mavius's level, hand on her stolen rifle. She looked up for the duct tape near the monitor, and reached for it. "But I won't. Keep still, I need your armour."

"Wait, don-" and the tape was put over his face twice, so tight he could barely move his mandibles.

Vetra felt something drip down her chin, and stared at her bloodied fingers as she wiped it on her sleeve, her jaw throbbing still. She swiped a tongue over her teeth and felt the hole again, annoyed at her missing canine. "Was it you that ripped out my tooth? Nod once for yes."

He jerked forward as Vetra leaned on him, pinioning his arms behind his back. A knee to his gizzard stilled him enough to wrap a length of the tape around his wrists. "Stop that. Either I tie you up and you live another day, or I shoot you. Pick one." Finally, Mavius went still, fight leaving him. "Good boy. Glad we could do business."

She reached for the buckles of breastplate, yanking off every armour piece she could get to until there was a neat pile. His comm tool came next, rooted under his fringe. With a look of disgust she picked off a lump of dried, flaky wax before putting it into own ear canal. It buzzed, a background quiet; whoever was on his line was clear for now.

Please Confirm Correct Information. You need help with: _say something please V where are you_

She sighed, reading the text of the monitor with a glance. The ration bars were heavy in her stomach now, and Vetra tried to force the nausea down with a large swallow, putting on the stolen armour; it was made for a bigger carapace, but she would have to make do.

Vetra pinched her nose as a bout of dizziness hit her after she secured Mavius again with more tape; she almost dropped her 'borrowed' omni-tool in reaction as her gut rolled. "Not now."

She didn't have time for a full reset on his 'tool. Instead she closed down the folders of predictable porn labelled 'taxes' with a grimace. "You know if you close all these programs, your tool would run faster," she told him, shrugging as he mumbled a muffled insult. An open holo of what Vetra assumed was his wife caught her eye, smiling at the camera somewhere blue and pleasant. She thought the woman was rather frumpy, all dull brown plates and yellowing Taetrus markings; but then, Mavius was hardly a catch.

A crack of thunder battered outside the prefab somewhere, and Vetra wondered if there was a ship she could steal beyond its walls. She was fighting the urge to stand straight with each footfall; it took two fumbled attempts to connect with the terminal again via the omni-tool, all so she could speak on the move.

 _Still here,_ she told a frantic Sid. _Hacking into a comm line now, what frequency are you at?_

 _20012.22.1/3- I can scramble my end,_ came the frenzied answer- Sid could always type fast. _I am connected to the Tempest, messaged them ASAP that I found you. They know where you are anyway, they traced a call Kaetus made half an hour ago, same as what I see here. They've gone quiet, but Ryder's coming to get you, right? He has to._

 _He_ better, Vetra thought, annoyed at the want she felt over it. She thought she could handle an escape by herself, but a pick up from her boyfriend filled her with too much hope for her liking- despite the mother of all headaches brewing under her crest.

She left the room and poked the boxes. Nothing there but old tools and food rations, probably stolen from the Nexus. The frail network finally connected to her stolen earpiece, and she could hear Sid's frantic breathing. "And there we are," was the first thing Vetra said out loud. "You there?"

"Vetra! Holy fuck-"

"Language," Vetra said, amused at the reaction. "I know I taught you better than that. Fucks are reserved for when you mean it. This is a holy shit level- maybe a holy crap if I escape."

" _Ugh,_ Vetra," Sid said. "This is a fuck level, right? I mean, you're still alive."

Vetra snorted, checking the other rooms for something else to scavenge. "I'm still breathing, anyway. They put me on something to keep me quiet, it's not agreeing with me."

"Oblivion," Sid replied, a shade too fast. "I got access to the Tempest comms and been listening in; think Ryder's freaky AI knows I'm here, but they're letting it slide. Kaetus boasted about the drug stuff when he called, said you were addicted now."

She laughed, amused at the notion that somehow she had a choice in the matter- why yes Kaetus, don't mind if I do do a dab or three of the shit. Sign me up for that Oblivion, can't get enough. "Don't do drugs, kiddies," Vetra said, staring at the ceiling. "Blasto was right."

Her voice cracked enough for the joke to land awkwardly. "Vetra?"

"Yeah, yeah. I'm here. Just- been better, Sid."

There was silence between them then; for once, neither knew what to say to the other. Sid reached out first, trying so hard to comfort her sick sister. "You- are you going to be okay? I don't know how to help from here. There's a doctor in Kadara who treats 'blivved out junkies for free but-"

"Junkie? Thanks," Vetra said, voice dry again. "I'm not that far gone." She was still searching for something useful. An elderly Carnifex lay on top of one box, and Vetra checked the load out. Piss poor but it will do, and she added it to the thigh holster of her too loose armour.

"What I mean is, you need something stronger to help you. I found something for Creeper and Red Sand addiction, but we left that stuff in the Milky Way, I think? And even then you need some kind of prescription to counter them both."

She thought of the junkies waiting outside the clinic near that one crumbling apartment they lived in back in Nutus, the one with the Asari landlady who yelled even when paid on time. Vetra always held Sid's hand a bit tighter when the walked home on the weekend; they were there when the opiod prescriptions came in, without fail, and the clinic always had twitchy customers. "I don't exactly have any to hand," she said, scanning the room. "Wouldn't take it anyway."

Vetra stopped, the motion sickness blurring her vision. She slumped against the wall and inhaled deeply, and before she could stop herself, her ration bars came back up, her stomach losing the fight to keep them there. At least she was quick enough to avoid her feet this time, even if there was no bucket to aim into. "Vetra? Vetra, are you- are you okay?" Sid trilled at an alarming rate, panicking at the retching noises.

She sounded so small, so frail. Sid was the little sister she was meant to look after, not to lean on. "Yeah, sure," Vetra replied, annoyed at her own weakness. "I'm great. Listen, I should get off the line, I need to scout out the area. I'll call you back, okay? I need to get hold of my boyf- the Pathfinder."

"No! No, no. I should stay," Sid replied. "Keep you talking, it helps. Oblivion disconnects you from reality, this med report says. Shoves you into old memories."

She shook her head at that. That would explain seeing her old Batarian mentor and talking to figments of the Milky Way in the past few days, but Vetra hardly found the whole thing pleasant; it wasn't exactly a round trip she'd take part in for fun, that's for sure. "I don't think I'm on a high dose. I'm not seeing weird shit, I just feel awful."

"Mavius, come in," said a whisper through the comm. Vetra had left the guard's communication half open, so she could still monitor whatever was said; she recognised the voice for 'Susan,' the Human guard from before. "Stop jerking off, we're coming back. Say something, _say something_." Vetra didn't answer. Sid at least had the sense to be quiet. "All I hear is static, this is what you get for buying shitty tech. Fine. The bomb's been set and we're heading back, so get your shit together. Salarian should be there before us, might have to wait for us until he sticks her again, she seemed feisty when we left."

Vetra planned not to be inside when they arrived, hiding out to steal whatever vehicle they came in; judging from the lack of a view outside, she would have to wait for one to appear. Maybe the comedown wouldn't be as bad as the first; maybe she would be well enough to fly whatever stolen Kodiak runner they had to escape. "Sid, connect our call to APEX and the Tempest," she said, standing up. "They need to know about the bomb."

She didn't have time to wait. The hiss of the main doors opened, and she barely had time to hide from whoever was walking in. That meant they had either parked something beyond her hearing, or there was another building in walking distance. Vetra could see it was the Salarian nurse from before, the one that had dosed her to the point of unconsciousness and called it 'duty of care.' A universally white doctor's toolkit was in his hand, at odds with his heavy armour; time for her medication again, it seemed.

"Hey asshole," she said, and fired over her cover. A graze to his shield and he dived away from her, dropping the toolkit.

"Let's not be foolish," he said from the other side of the room, cowering behind a pile of his own boxes; Vetra shot back her reply. "I'm a trained medical professional! This is most unbecoming."

Vetra lifted her head to take aim, annoyed at the rifle's stuttering accuracy. "If you could connect the call Sid, now would be great. I don't have my hands free."

"APEX should be answering soon," Sid said, nervous at the sound of the guns. By her thudding intonation, she was running; Vetra worked out she was at her communications desk in Operations, and not stuck in their apartment. "I just threw my lunch at Kandros, he should pick up now."

"Nyx?" Kandros spoke, disgruntled. Vetra imagined he was wiping Tupari from his armour, knowing her sister; she had one hell of an aim with a soda can. "Are you safe to talk?"

The Salarian had a gun; a shot went over Vetra's head, and she flinched, blindly firing back with her rifle from the safety of cover. "Kind of. Seems like we have a bomb wherever I am- near some sort of quarry, since the assholes talked about one."

"I'm aware. You're on Ryder-1," came the infuriatingly calm response over the gunfire. "There's not much of a security force there, only a handful of soldiers we use to guard the terraforming equipment. Ryder's orders are for APEX to stand down, for now. There are other bombs, Nyx. You'll know soon enough when back up arrives."

Her stomach flipped at the news. Couldn't Scott tell her this? Why hadn't he answered their call yet? "Fascinating," she said, gritting her teeth as another bullet passed her by. The lightning storm had picked up again outside, eerily alien without any rain. "I'll speak to him, since you know jack shit. Sid, anyone picking up?"

Vetra risked a peek over her cover. The Salarian had disappeared somewhere else, and she had no visor to track his heat signature; a combination of her dizziness and the clicks of comm static distracted her, too intent now on the words in her ear. "Vetra?" A familiar voice spoke, one that almost made her put her head in her hands. It was Ryder, finally- _her_ Scott. "Is that you, are you-"

"Scott," she replied, aware that every thrum of her sub-vocals -the one her sister would mock her for when she was safe- longed for him, an undertone of relief and need. The two Turians on the line could hear what was loaded in that one exhaled word, to the point that Kandros cleared his throat.

"Keeping an eye on this line," Kandros said. "I'm still here, if you need me."

She fired three shots over her cover, just to make sure. "Are you safe?" Scott asked her, voice tight with worry over the noise. He might not have subvocals, but Vetra could still hear the need for reassurance; he never was one for masking his emotions, especially around her.

"Not yet. Still have hostiles, more to come."

Another crack of thunder reverberated outside, close enough to make the prefab shake. "How many, Vetra?" Scott said again. The lights flickered off in the room, thought the prefab was illuminated briefly by a flash of lightning through the window. Did it hit the roof?

The comm was dead, not even static clicked in her ear; Vetra's line had gone quiet, the terminal's severed connection shoving her stolen earpiece into silence. "Shit."

Even in the darkness she could see the blurring of a poorly made tactical cloak; Vetra had her sight trained on it, but a pistol was jammed into her head as soon as the Salarian revealed himself next to her. "I told you not to be hasty," he said. "You don't look very well. But you know I can help you with that."

She had the rifle pointed into his gut; they were even. "Is it the kind of help I'll be shoving up your cloaca? I seem to remember telling you I would do that, funny. Thought you Salarians had a good memory."

It came down to talking around guns again, even in a lightning storm, even with a threat of a bomb nearby; Vetra had the patience to wait.


	10. Faroang System, One Hour Ago

It was an exercise of frustration to get all of Heleus's leaders on one secure line at once. "Had better luck herding klixen," Drack said, grumbling under his breath. "This shit is pointless." Scott knew very well how the conversation would go. If he played it right, he would get his way, and if he didn't, well. He could always apologise after doing it.

It took ten minutes to get Efvra de Tershaav to answer. The leaders of the Nexus, the Collective and the remaining Pathfinders had to wait while he finally agreed to take the call, all the while Kaetus's ticking deadline was swallowed by the holdup. "Thank you for responding so fast," Scott said, an eyebrow raised at Efvra. "Kaetus still has Vetra Nyx hostage, and will contact me in-" and he checked the time, eyes on the corner of the screen "-thirty minutes to negotiate his terms."

"I am sorry for your situation, but we're all here why, exactly?" asked Efvra, refusing to look up from his datapad. Scott wondered if it was a deliberate snub, that Efvra wanted to make a point about his priorities, and how dare the Pathfinder ruin them.

"He will give me the choice of a location to three places," Scott replied, annoyed at everything and everyone. "One has Vetra. The remaining have have level four threats, or Blue-Silvers. I do not know the nature of what they are, I am going to assume a bomb, maybe raiders. Kaetus will only deal with me for negotiations, no one else."

His audience was silent only for a moment. "Do you have a plan, Ryder?" asked Keema. The holo managed to pick up the trail of her smoke as she lit her cigar. Her face gave away nothing.

"Of a sort," Scott said. "I wanted to warn you all first of the threat. It's not ransom money he wants, but chaos."

"Kaetus will only deal with you?" said Director Tann. To no one's surprise, a challenge to his authority was the first thing Tann commented on. "Unorthodox."

"Yes," replied Scott, resisting the urge to snarl his reply. "We can still work together to take the bastard out, especially since he threatened all our people."

"Indeed," said Pathfinder Raeka, arms behind her back. "While I am grateful for Ryder's assistance and leadership in the past year, I am more than ready to share the burden. This is what we've trained for, after all."

"Don't discount APEX either," said Kandros, via voice chat; he was too busy with his work to attend the holo meeting, but he at least was there on speaker. "People have made that mistake before. My teams are good." Scott nodded; while APEX were better at recon work, they still managed to deactivate two bombs from Kaetus without a hitch.

"No offence to Ryder, but some of us have history with dealing with Level Four threats, if they even exist here," said Pathfinder Rix. "I know what to do with terrorists."

Most of them knew exactly what Avitus Rix meant; Spectres had a grim reputation for a reason, and Rix was one for fifteen years. "That maybe so, but it is still only one person in exchange for many," said Tann. "Oh, don't all look at me like that. I'm very aware you're all thinking it. And it needs to be said, if no one else will."

The reply made Scott's teeth grind. "Vetra Nyx has bled and fought for the Initiative from the beginning," he said. "It is thanks to her that the Nexus was able stay in orbit since its crash landing, _in my opinion_. That we even have the Tempest to begin with is her doing, since she saved it from the scrapheap. Vetra is important as any of us standing here."

Kesh nodded. "She always got me what I needed, even when this place went dark. Vetra's invaluable."

"That still doesn't mean she has priority," Director Tann smoothed over, before his colleagues could add something else. "I do not doubt Ms. Nyx's, ah, skills in acquiring certain… goods, but our people and our allies should remain our focus. This is a very serious, very important matter to deal with, and in my-"

"Important? _Ha_ ," said Efvra, interrupting him. "I tire of this. Why do you always assume we Angara are incapable without you?" He waved his hand irritably before anyone could answer. "Your Kaetus is nothing compared to the Kett, or even the Roekaar," he said. "This entire conversation is a waste of time. We can handle whatever threat is thrown at us from this amateur."

"Didn't want to leave you out, Efvra. You'd only sulk," Scott replied. He might still be stressed, but his sarcasm refused to buckle from it.

Efvra glared at him through the holo, annoyed at the jab. "If you are finished? Good. For now, our homes and our skies are under lock down. No alien ship may enter Angaran airspace- including those from the Nexus," he said, voice low. "You will keep me informed of your decision, Scott Ryder. I will only send aid only if I know the Resistance can spare it."

Director Addison spoke before Tann could, anxious to play the diplomat. "That's kind of you, Mr, ah, de Tershaav. Once this threat has been dealt with, I hope our agreed upon trade negotiations will still be in place?"

"Perhaps," Efvra replied. "Efvra out." He had closed the line of his end with a flick of the holo. Addison pinched her nose.

"Great," she said. "Just- great." It was going exactly a Scott thought; pride was so very easy to manipulate.

"And there goes our Resistance leader," he said. So far the Charlatan's mouthpiece remained quiet, and Scott wondered if Reyes Vidal was in the room with her, watching their conversation. "Still with us, Keema?"

She puffed out her cigar before speaking, her eyes flicking to the side before speaking. "We will take the offer of help from you," she said. "If it is given freely."

Tann harrumphed, eyes blinking furiously. "We made no such promise."

"But _we_ did," said Sara. "That's what this alliance is for. We negotiated the terms and conditions on the Meridian months ago, unless it's slipped your mind? I don't blame you if it had, you have so much on your plate already." She had smiled sweetly at Tann, head tilted to one side.

Scott hid a snort. "Whoops. No take backs."

"Ryder," Tann sighed, exasperated at them both. "Very well. We can spare something."

"Like we spared our blood for your fight with the Archon?" said Keema. "Of course. The Charlatan wishes to pass on that he understands your burden, Scott Ryder. And says he'll forgive your choice."

"Wait a moment. Nothing has been decided," said Tann. "Kaetus has not called you back, yes? He still has not said what the three locations are."

"We traced his call to the Eriksson system," said Scott, ignoring the question. "Vetra's being held there, I was given proof she was still alive."

"She might be moved on after," Kandros added. "The only thing there is Ryder-1, and there's not a lot of our military there, such as it is. A couple of guards for the terraforming dig sites, that's it. He could be holed up in a ship somewhere, but all we've seen in the area is the ones that belong to us, not even the Kett are around."

"That still doesn't mean the Pathfinder should go on a whim," said Tann. Addison folded her arms next to him.

"We're still here," said Raeka, patiently waiting for something to happen. "A Pathfinder can indeed go. There's four of us."

"So can APEX," said Kandros. "I can get them there faster than you. I have to-" he paused, muffled by something. "Give me a moment."

"Stand down for now," Scott told him. "I need to see what Kaetus says when he calls back soon."

Addison pinched her nose again. "Ah, yes. Dealing with belligerent terrorists. This comes under my training when I signed up."

"I'd say terrible," said Pathfinder Rix. "You saw the evidence of the bombs. They were hack jobs. I mean, you all read the reports."

Kandros joined the conversation again. "Ah, Ryder? Check your messages. You have-"

 _-You have an incoming call from Vetra Nyx, Pathfinder; via a Sidera Nyx,_ said SAM, talking over Kandros smoothly.

The entire room startled in surprise. "Put her through now," Scott said, talking over Tann's order to accept it. "Vetra?" Static clicked on the line, and he could hear something. "Is that you, are you-"

"Scott," she replied. Both of them almost broke in two from the relief of hearing the other.

Kandros cleared his throat. "Keeping an eye on the commline. Kandros out."

Tann, Addison and Keema at least had the sense to keep quiet, especially since they all heard the gunshots through the line. "Are you safe?" Scott asked her. He might not have subvocals, but Vetra could still hear the need for an answer; he never was one for masking his emotions, even if Director Tann was listening in.

Static muffled her reply. Where ever she was, the satellites were having troubles with the signal. "Not yet. Still have hostiles, more to-"

Her connection had snapped into nothing; Scott tried to get it back, but there was no response. "Vetra? Please, speak to me. Where are you? Help is coming, I swear it."

"I can't get her," said Sid, subvocals frantic with worry. "The line's dead. You're going, right? I know where she is, I sent the coordinates to Suvi."

Scott looked down at the floor, away from the holo. "You've all made it very clear what you want me to do," he told his remaining audience. Kaetus will contact me soon. I will let you know my response after."

"Your response?" Said Tann. "Now wait a min-"

He shut the lines off, and refused to accept the incoming calls from the Nexus. Raeka, however, sent a message via mail, knowing this. _Standing by. Waiting for orders. Rix and I in agreement: you lead, we follow._

Very, very carefully Scott leant against the panel of the holo, staring at the floor. "Right," Scott said, to no one in particular.

Cora cleared her throat. "Does this mean you've reached your decision?"

They all knew what he was going to say, but he had to confirm. "We get Vetra," said Scott.

Jaal raised an eyebrow and nodded once. Liam, however, did not agree. "What if you're wrong?"

Scott looked up from the comm table. "I am done with ' _what if_ s' in my life, Liam. This one is simple for me."

"That's it? That's the plan?"

That the disapproval had come from Liam of all people made Scott laugh in bemusement. "Yeah, that's it, that's the plan. Kallo, set a course to her last known location in the Eriksson system."

"Understood," was the reply over the comms. Kallo and Suvi did not take part in the meeting; instead they waited on the bridge, Suvi head down in her work still. "Priming for FTL now."

Liam was still not done. "I'm not going to roll over and tell you it's okay," he said.

"I suggest you let this go," said Scott. "For both of us."

His request was duly ignored. "I was a crisis specialist, Ryder. I've seen what Level Fours and Blue Silvers do in action, and I did not sign up to watch them happen all over again, especially knowing I could do something to stop them. I've pulled out the bodies of children from rubble." Liam ran a hand through his hair, frustrated. "I've seen what terrorists and slavers do to colonies like ours, up close. And it's not pretty."

"I am aware," Scott replied.

"If you do this, if you pick her over them, it's saying to every damn person who came here that they're worth less then us, that the Pathfinder's priorities don't cover theirs. I don't know about you, but we all left that kind of shit behind, right? Who we are, what we do- it should mean something to people here, that they can rely on us for safety."

Neither moved for a beat, staring at the other; both had reached a stalemate. Drack took one look at Cora and the pair not so subtly stood between the two men, waiting for a reaction. "I am not the only Pathfinder," Scott said. "You heard the meeting. We're not alone in this."

"No, but you're _The_ Pathfinder," Liam spat back, his fists clenched tight. "Most of us escaped to Andromeda for a reason- to find a life here, and you're our symbol for it all. You-"

"Fuck your symbol," Scott said, snarling the words out. "I've heard enough."

"Woah now," said Cora, stepping closer to Liam. "How 'bout we all calm down?"

Liam stared at the ceiling, hands on his hips now. It took every bit of his will not to snap back. "You're my friend; so's Vetra. But do you really think she'll be happy to have the deaths of hundreds on her conscience, knowing you picked her over Kaetus's bullshit? Besides, you heard her on the comms- she's still alive. She's fighting herself free."

Scott rose from his lean to stare over him. "You done?" He asked. If they weren't friends, if Liam had never promised to follow him to the end of the universe itself, the scene would've escalated to something else. Still, neither had fired at the other like this, not even in jest.

"Oh I'm done," replied Liam, hissing the word through his teeth. "But when this is over? Don't find me. Don't even talk to me."

Cora lowered her hands as he walked away. It was then that Scott realised her fists were subtly blue with her biotics, ready to do something should it happen. His second would have taken down Liam without a thought, and Scott stood straighter knowing Cora -and Drack, judging by the side eye- had his back.

"He needs time," she said. "He'll come around."

Scott ignored Cora's attempt at a peace offering. "We're still going to Ryder-1," he said. "But we don't know what Kaetus has planned, so be ready for a fight- I got a feeling there will be one waiting for us."

"What do we even know about his intention, anyway?" she asked. "Other than he's an asshole who might have weapons of mass destruction, if we pick wrong."

Scott thought of his conversation with Reyes barely days ago. "He's playing a shell game, and we have to find the pea. That's what he's doing."

"Kaetus wants you to pick Vetra," said Sara. "Which would imply he has something up his sleeve. We know where she is, we traced the call. He's on Ryder-1, isn't he? Because if it's a symbol he wants to take down, then that's a big one."

Gil shook his head. "I think that's misdirection, we're still being hustled. I don't think he intends to stay there- we got six hours to reach it, after all. Plenty of time for him to scarper off to whatever hole he lives in. Vetra escaping probably has thrown a wrench in the warp drive though, so to speak."

"We're still going to Ryder-1," said Scott. "No arguments."

"You'll get none from me," replied Gil, instantly holding his hands out in acceptance. "Just I don't think our buddy Kaetus will be waiting, especially not for your preferred brand of arse kicking. Even if Vetra escapes him."

Scott chewed a nail as he thought. Gil had a point. "Suvi, could you and SAM work together to find a rough trajectory of where Kaetus could fly to?"

"On it," said Suvi over the ship's commline. "It'll be a haystack, just to warn you. Our satellite networks are monitoring all ships that take off and land near there, which should help."

Jaal walked up to him, his omni-tool open to show the feed of their last mission. "Ryder, what of these Roekaar?" he said. "You did not mention them in the meeting, nor what we found on their base."

"Because we don't know if they're involved," said Scott. "Why would they be?" He didn't say anything because he wanted to downplay the threat. Scott was aware something was going on, enough for him to doubt his decision- not that he would tell a soul of this. Liam's reaction was enough.

Peebee snorted. "That's a new MO if they are. I thought their deal was all: 'aliens are disgusting, behold the purity and awesomeness of the Angara, kiss my neckflaps.'"

"Yes that's exactly it, Peebee. You're made for politics, I'd vote for you," said Sara, amused.

Peebee stuck her tongue out in retaliation, looping her arm around Sara. Scott levelled his gaze at them both, annoyed. "Politics brings me out in a rash," Peebee said, ignoring it. "I'll leave that to the both of you. Though that lab of theirs rubbed me the wrong way- something about it, you know? No one has Benzilate lying around for sane reasons."

"I concur," said Jaal. "And Evfra, he... knew," he said, still hurt over the lack of intel shared with them. "I am perturbed by the repercussions this could have."

"Who gives a shit," said Drack, finally throwing his opinion into the matter. "You heard what my _mu'shan_ said, Vetra's important. No one cares that we're going to pick her up over a maybe. And she's alive." He made a point to nod at Scott when he said it. "I heard the gunfire. She escaped."

"She's crafty, our girl," said Gil. Not even Scott could call her that; Gil was the only one on the ship who could, for some reason, give Vetra pet names. "She'll be there."

"I know," Scott said. "I-"

He would've said more, but the commline flashed red; Kaetus had called again, only this time he was seven minutes earlier than planned.

* * *

An update! Thank you for your patience, this one was hard to write, for some reason.


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